House Republican calls for mass killing of ‘radicalized Islamic’ suspects

Laurel Raymond/Think Progress

Louisiana Rep. Clay Higgins (R) responded to an attack in downtown London over the weekend by calling for a mass extrajudicial killing of people suspected of adhering to “radicalized” Islam.

“Not one penny of American treasure should be granted to any nation who harbors these heathen animals. Not a single radicalized Islamic suspect should be granted any measure of quarter,” he wrote. “Hunt them, identify them, and kill them. Kill them all. For the sake of all that is good and righteous. Kill them all.”

Notably, Higgins advocated for the killing of anyone even suspected of having links to terrorism, and gave no definition of how that should be determined. He described the fight as a “war” between Christendom and “Islamic horror,” echoing a rallying cry of the far-right.

Such black-and-white rhetoric also dovetails with one of ISIS’ stated goals:To divide the world into two camps, those who believe their ideology and everyone else. In so doing, they aim to eliminate the “grey zone” and convince other Muslims that their faith is unwelcome and incompatible with the West, radicalizing them.

The statement also hedges close to allowing ISIS and other militant groups to represent Islam as a whole, even though the group is deeply unpopular in huge swaths of the Muslim world, and scores of prominent Muslim leaders have condemned them.

Higgins shared his message alongside an image of the terror attack in downtown London on Saturday, which left seven civilians dead and 48 hospitalized. ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attack.

The full text of his Facebook post is below:

Captain Clay Higgins

on Sunday

The free world... all of Christendom... is at war with Islamic horror. Not one penny of American treasure should be granted to any nation who harbors these heathen animals. Not a single radicalized Islamic suspect should be granted any measure of quarter. Their intended entry to the American homeland should be summarily denied. Every conceivable measure should be engaged to hunt them down. Hunt them, identify them, and kill them. Kill them all. For the sake of all that is good and righteous. Kill them all.
-Captain Clay Higgins

A spokesman from Higgins’ office confirmed to Mother Jones that the Facebook post is authentic. In an email to Jezebel, a spokesperson said, “Rep. Higgins is referring to terrorists. He’s advocating for hunting down and killing all of the terrorists. This is an idea all of America & Britain should be united behind.”

Higgins is a first term Congressman, and has been a strong supporter of President Trump and his attempts to ban travelers from several Muslim-majority countries from the United States. Higgins resigned from his previous post as the public information officer in the St. Landry Parish Sheriff’s office after being instructed by his boss, the sheriff, to tone downhis “disrespectful and demeaning” comments.

Southern Poverty Law Center finds disturbing growth in anti-Muslim hate groups in 2016

Adrienne Mahsa Varkiani/Think Progress

The number of anti-Muslim hate groups increased almost three-fold in 2016, according to a new report from the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The SPLC’s quarterly census of hate groups found that anti-Muslim hate groups increased from 34 in 2015 to 101 last year.

Mark Potok, a Senior Fellow at the SPLC, pointed to Trump’s rhetoric about Muslims and his election victory to explain some of the increase in anti-Muslim hate across the country.

“I think the most important factor probably driving the growth of these groups, in the states at least, has been Donald Trump and his campaign: his vilification of Muslims; his description of them as so dangerous that we need to keep them out of the country; his idea that we have to form a registry, Nazi-esque registry, in which we’re going to put down the names of all Muslim Americans; his proposal to surveil mosques; and on and on and on,” said Potok.

The SPLC report also found that the number of overall hate groups in the country increased for the second consecutive year — from 892 in 2015 to 917 last year. That number is 101 less than the all-time high of 1018 groups in 2011, but the increase is still troubling.

“There’s something going on in our country, and it’s fairly dramatic,” Potok said in a call with reporters. “I don’t think I’m telling anyone anything they don’t know, when I say that Trump’s election has been absolutely electrifying to the radical right.”

But Potok also said that the number is probably an underestimate of the true state of the radical right in the United States. “I say that because we’ve seen a very clear phenomenon of more and more people on the radical right never really engaging with brick-and-mortar hate groups on the ground out there in the real world. Instead, we find many more of them essentially lurking on the internet until the day that they decide, in some cases, that action is needed, and ‘action’ more often than not means murder or equally scary criminal activities.” Potok pointed to Dylan Roof, the white supremacist responsible for the Charleston massacre in 2015, as one example of this.

The SPLC report also includes an interactive map of where hate groups exist across the country as well as a breakdown of the groups and individuals targeting different communities. One of the organizations the SPLC labels an anti-Muslim extremist group is the Center for Security Policy, which Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway previously worked with.

“Outside of the Christian right, which is a relatively well-funded sector of the hate world, the anti-Muslim groups are by far the best-funded radical right-wing groups we see in this country,” Potok said. “Just to give a single example, David Horowitz, who is the leader of something called the David Horowitz Freedom Center and a really vicious anti-Muslim ideologue, makes (at least as of 2014) an annual salary of $567,000. So hating on Muslims pays rather well in the United States these days.”

While there was in increase in the number of hate groups, the SPLC found a 38 percent decrease in the number of anti-government “patriot” groups in the country, and he explained that may be because the individuals in those groups support Trump and his policies.

“I think what was really happening is that Donald Trump is so revered by so many people in these groups, that they have essentially stood back, thinking that Donald Trump is going to do all of the things that they wish they could do themselves,” Potok explained. “In many ways, Trump has co-opted these groups, co-opted their issues in terms of land use, in terms of guns, in terms of opposition to immigration, in terms of seeing Muslims as a threat to the United States and American civilization, and so on.”

The SPLC report confirms ThinkProgress’ own reporting. In the three months following the election, we found 261 hate incidents across the country. 41.7 percent of those incidents were specifically connected with Trump, his election, or his policies in some way. 11.8 percent targeted the Muslims—a high proportion given the small size of the Muslim community in the United States.

Learn more about the alarming growth of hate groups in the U.S. here:

O'Reilly Mainstreams Leader Of Violent British Anti-Muslim Hate Group

BRIAN THORN/Media Matters For America:

Fox News' Bill O'Reilly provided a platform for Tommy Robinson, head of the English Defence League, a violent, extremist anti-Muslim hate group in Great Britain.

O'Reilly hosted Robinson on The O'Reilly Factor to discuss the EDL's efforts to, as Robinson described, "fight for Christianity, fight for our children's future, fight for our culture, and fight for our country's identity, which is completely under attack." Robinson went on to claim that British politicians aren't doing enough to suppress the growth of Muslim communities in the United Kingdom, adding "actions speak a lot louder than words."

Although O'Reilly mentioned press reports describing the EDL as "fascist" and "racist" and described the group's views as "militant" at the beginning of the segment, he failed to note the EDL's history of incendiary and often violent actions. A 2010 "undercover investigation" by The Guardian found that the organization planned protests against Muslim communities in "a blatant attempt to provoke mayhem and disorder":

MPs said the group's decision to target some of the UK's most prominent Muslim communities was a blatant attempt to provoke mayhem and disorder. "This group has no positive agenda," said the Bradford South MP, Gerry Sutcliffe. "It is an agenda of hate that is designed to divide people and communities. We support legitimate protest but this is not legitimate, it is designed to stir up trouble. The people of Bradford will want no part of it."

The English Defence League, which started in Luton last year, has become the most significant far-right street movement in the UK since the National Front in the 1970s. A Guardian investigation has identified a number of known rightwing extremists who are taking an interest in the movement - from convicted football hooligans to members of violent rightwing splinter groups.

Thousands of people have attended its protests - many of which have descended into violence and racist and Islamophobic chanting. Supporters are split into "divisions" spread across the UK and as many as 3,000 people are attracted to its protests.

[...]

The EDL claims it is a peaceful and non-racist organisation only concerned with protesting against "militant Islam". However, over the last four months the Guardian has attended its demonstrations and witnessed racism, violence and virulent Islamophobia.

A post on the Southern Poverty Law Center's Hatewatch blog described the video that accompanied the Guardian post as revealing "the group's defining features: street intimidation and violent rhetoric":

In the video, EDL activists are heard issuing targeted threats and speaking of upcoming "murders" and "stampings". Among the British groups that have attached themselves to the EDL are violent neo-Nazi outfits such as Combat 18 and far-right racist parties like the National Front. Because of the increasingly ominous atmosphere surrounding its public gatherings, the EDL's founder and leader Tommy Robinson was stopped last week by authorities at JFK Airport on a tip from British police and sent back to England.

According to the narrator of the Guardian video, a reporter who spent months inside the movement, the EDL is not "simply a rerun of previous far-right organizations." Rather, "it has acted like a lightning rod with people with a range of grievances who appear to be coalescing around a rampant Islamaphobia."

A study on the English Defense League by Faith Matters, a U.K.-based nonprofit that "works to reduce extremism and interfaith and intra-faith tensions," found that "It is hard to escape the conclusion that, on the ground, the EDL is a violent organization." The study concluded by writing:

Should the EDL adopt increasingly intimidating tactics against local Muslim communities and opposition groups, it will become even more difficult to avoid a downward spiral of violence that will not only feed the EDL's toxic narrative but also radicalize Muslim communities, encouraging deeper divisions within our communities. A further aggravating factor is economic austerity and the possibility that this could intensify resentment towards Muslims. When it comes to the level of threat that the EDL currently poses to our country, our communities and our values, there is certainly no room for complacency.

Robinson touted the EDL's "Jewish division" on The O'Reilly Factor, but made no mention of Roberta Moore, who resigned as head of the EDL's Jewish division in 2011 because of what she claimed were Nazi elements within the group.

O'Reilly is not the first right-wing media figure to highlight the EDL or its leader. Ann Coulter defended the organization from critics after a protest against the slaying of a British soldier by two Muslim men in Woolwich turned violent last month.

Pamela Geller, an Islamophobic blogger and activist, has repeatedly expressed her support for the EDL in the past. She wrote at the conservative American Thinker that "Free people should support the English Defence League in its efforts to stand for England and the West against the belligerent invaders and Islamic imperialists." This past January, she defended Robinson after he was arrested for illegally entering the United States. Geller and Robinson sit together on the President's Council of Stop Islamization of Nations, which claims to be "the first activist leadership team uniting counter-jihadists in Europe, the U.S., and Australia."

Man angry over Boston bombings breaks jaw of ‘f*cking Muslim’ Iraq war veteran

By David Edwards/Raw Story

A 39-year-old Muslim cab driver who served in the Iraq war says that an executive from an aviation company accused him of being a jihadist and broke his jaw in what activists are calling a hate crime.

Mohamed A. Salim told The Washington Post that Emerald Aviation President Ed Dahlberg attacked him after he picked him up at Country Club of Fairfax in Northern Virginia at around 2 a.m. on Friday. Dahlberg had been drinking and was told that he would have to finish his open beer before getting into the cab.

Salim recorded audio of the encounter on his cell phone.

Dahlberg can be heard asking Salim, who emigrated from Somalia, to define “jihad” and then lumping him in with “radical fucking Muslims blowing people up all over the world.”

“Denounce those motherfuckers now!” Dahlberg demands. “If you’re a fucking Muslim flying jets into the fucking World Trade Center then fuck you. I will slice your fucking throat right now.”

After Salim threatens to call 911, Dahlberg can be seen grabbing for the cell phone.

Salim said that Dahlberg left the cab, but then returned and broke his jaw before running into the woods.

Dahlberg was charged with misdemeanor assault and police are determining if charges should be elevated to a felony hate crime. The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) on Monday said that medical records and the 11-minute cell phone recording were being used as evidence in the case.

In a statement, Dahlberg’s attorney, Demetry Pikrallidas, admitted that his client “became rather emotional as the discussion turned to jihad and 9/11, and especially heated on the subject of jihadists who want to harm America.”

Pikrallidas insisted that Dahlberg did not assault Salim.

The website for Dahlberg’s company, Emerald Aviation, was offline for four days of “scheduled maintenance” as of Wednesday afternoon. A cached copy of the website listed him as the president and said he had “20 years experience in the field of business and commercial aviation” and was known for “transparent business transactions and always effectively representing the best interests of his clients.”

Salim is a naturalized U.S. citizen and is an Army Reserve sergeant who has worked in intelligence and as a linguist. He served in Iraq and at the Guantanamo Bay detention center.

“I sacrificed for this country,” Salim told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Wednesday. “And I myself was fighting the terrorists and I’m against acts of violence. I’m not a terrorist. I’m not a jihadist. I’m American like you.”

“Whether he’s guilty of assault or not is up to a jury to decide, but the video makes it clear that the guy is a bigoted asshole,” Jalopnik’s Patrick George observed on Wednesday. “There’s no excuse for treating someone else this way.”

Watch this video from The Washington Post, broadcast April 30, 2013.

Coulter: Boston suspect’s widow ‘ought to be in prison for wearing a hijab’

By Stephen C. Webster/Raw Story

Appearing on Fox News Republican talk show “Hannity” Monday night, right-wing columnist Ann Coulter said she’s sad that not only does she think the Boston bombing should shut down the nation’s immigration reform debate, she would like to see the alleged bomber’s widow in jail too, not for committing a crime but for “wearing a hijab.”

“I don’t care if she knew about this,” Coulter said. “She ought to be in prison for wearing a hijab. This immigration policy of us, you know, assimilating immigrants into our culture isn’t really working. They’re assimilating us into their culture. Did she get a clitorectomy too?”

Hannity seemed momentarily puzzled at the sudden citation of female genital mutilation, stammering his reply. “I, uh, I don’t know the answer to that,” he said before confidently adding: “But your point is well taken.”

Hannity went on to say that he believes people who immigrated “from countries where perhaps they grew up under Sharia law” are definitely a threat and “I think we can make a safe assumption that they have been radicalized.” He added that even foreign students should be subjected to greater scrutiny, lest they too pose a threat.

“Our immigration policy has nothing to do with helping America,” Coulter insisted. “It has to do with solving the internal problems of other countries. We’ll take Russia’s radicals. We’ll take the illiterate, unskilled, low-skill workers from all these countries. We’ll take their old people and put them on our supplemental security and Medicare. No, immigration policies are supposed to make your country better, not to make it worse and to create all these problems.”

“Lindsey Graham was on some show this week saying this shows we need better tracking,” she continued. “I’m thinking this means we need better immigrants.”

Coulter and Hannity are just the latest conservatives to jump on the idea that because the Boston bombing suspects were born overseas, the nation’s whole immigration reform debate must shift gears into more regressive policy proposals, or just shut down in Congress altogether, as it did on Monday.

Fellow Republican talker Laura Ingraham said as much on Monday afternoon, suggesting that the U.S. shut down all immigration from majority Muslim nations. “I would submit that people shouldn’t be coming here as tourists from Chechnya after 9/11,” she said. “Dagistan, Checnya, Kergystan, uh-uh. As George Bush would say, ‘None of them stans.’”

Both Boston bombing suspects came to the U.S. legally as children. Authorities say there is not yet any evidence linking them to any foreign terrorist organizations, but an investigation is still ongoing.

Additionally, the Partnership for a New American Economy said last year that about one in 10 Americans worked for an immigrant-owned business in 2012, which contributed more than $775 billion to the U.S. economy and over $125 billion in payroll.

This video is from Fox News’s “Hannity,” aired Monday, April 22, 2013.

Ingraham pushes for an end to all Muslim immigration

By Stephen C. Webster/Raw Story

Right-wing radio host Laura Ingraham announced on her program Monday that she’s long believed the United States should shut down all immigration from central Asia and any nation with a majority Muslim population.

Going even further, Ingraham said she’s not sure why the U.S. allows people from central Asia either, particularly ethnic Chechnens, two of whom have been identified as the Boston bombing suspects.

“I would submit that people shouldn’t be coming here as tourists from Chechnya after 9/11,” Ingraham said. “Dagistan, Checnya, Kergystan, uh-uh. As George Bush would say, ‘None of them stans.’”

Because the Boston Marathon bombing happened right as the Senate prepares to take up immigration reform, some conservatives who want the immigration system to become more restrictive have cited the incident as cause for a rethink.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) in particular said on Friday that the attack is reason enough to put immigration reform on hold.

“How can individuals evade authority and plan such attacks on our soil? How can we beef up security checks on people who wish to enter the United States?” he asked. “How do we ensure that people who wish to do us harm are not eligible for benefits under the immigration laws, including this new bill before us?”

Grassley later backed off the implication that he was using the Boston bombings to jam up immigration reform, insisting, “I didn’t say that!” during a committee hearing on Monday.

This audio is from “The Laura Ingraham Show,” aired Monday, April 22, 2013, snipped by Mediaite.

Sean Hannity Launches Islamophobic Attack Against Keith Ellison

By Igor Volsky/Think Progress

Conservative talk show host Sean Hannity launched an Islampophobic attack against Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) during his Fox News show on Thursday night, implying that the Muslim Congressman is a racist and an anti-Semite. The segment came just days after Ellison and Hannity engaged in a confrontational interview on Tuesday night. “We decided to take a closer look at the man who called me immoral and a liar,” Hannity began. “Now it didn’t take long to prove his hypocrisy, as his past reveals a host of radical connections primarily to Louis Farrakhan and The Nation of Islam.”

The Fox host dug up attacks from Ellison’s 2006 Congressional campaign, criticizing the Minnesota lawmaker for defending Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam in his law school newspaper from charges of anti-Semitism and appearing on stage with Farrakhan aide Khalid Muhammad. Watch it:

In the late 1990s, Ellison worked with the group to organize the Million Man March, but apologized for failing to “adequately scrutinize the positions and statements” of the Nation of Islam and Farrakhan six years ago in a letter to the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas.

“I wrongly dismissed concerns that they were anti-Semitic,” he wrote, adding, “They were and are anti-Semitic and I should have come to that conclusion earlier than I did.” “I have long since distanced myself from and rejected the Nation of Islam due to its propagation of bigoted and anti-Semitic ideas and statements, as well as other issues.”

After the accusations first surfaced in 2006, Ellison’s Jewish law school colleagues said that “they never got the impression that Ellison himself was anti-Semitic” and American Jewish World, the newspaper for Minnesota’s Jewish community, endorsed him.

The Jewish Community Relations Council has since defended him from anti-Muslim attacks. “Representative Ellison is a friend to the Jewish community and we have enjoyed a strong working relationship with him since he assumed office in 2007,” the group said in a statement released last year.

UPDATE

At one point during the segment, while discussing Khalid Muhammad, Hannity asked, “What is the difference, I mean, do we have somebody then in Congress that is the equivalent of one side of what the Klan is?”

UPDATE

After Ellison was sworn in on the Quran in 2006, Hannity compared it to Mein Kampf: “[Y]ou know, would you have allowed him to choose, you know, Hitler’s Mein Kampf, which is the Nazi bible? In other words, where does this stop? Is there any limitations whatsoever?”

UPDATE

Religious leaders are coming to Ellison’s defense. Here is Rabbi Marc Schneier, president and Co-founder of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding: “Congressman Ellison has been a valued friend to the American Jewish community. He has been a partner in strengthening Muslim Jewish relations. As an example, he was responsible for organizing the letter by Muslim Americans to Khaled Meshal, head of Hamas, in demanding the release of Gilad Shalit.”

Conservatives Fault All Muslims For The Murder Of U.S. Ambassador To Libya

By Annie-Rose Strasser/Think Progress

As the United States woke to the news of the deaths of U.S. ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and three other U.S. citizens, politicians and pundits were already blaming Islam, as a religion, for the violent protests at the U.S. Embassies in Libya and Egypt. Here are some statements that portray Islam as a violent religion, linking all Muslims to the extremist actions of a contingent of violent protestors:

Newt Gingrich

• ✔

@newtgingrich

Todays riot in Cairo is a warning that weakness will lead to demands for Islamist supremacy. Obama should rethink his Cairo speech

11 Sep 12

• Reply
• Retweet
• Favorite

Michelle Malkin

• ✔

@michellemalkin

The "offensive" film is a pretext. EVERYTHING is a pretext for the Religion of Perpetual Outrage. ==>is.gd/ru9YXH

12 Sep 12

• Reply
• Retweet
• Favorite

Bryan Fischer@BryanJFischer

Lesson from Egypt, Libya etc: while we are not at war with Islam, mainstream Islam is at war with us.

12 Sep 12

• Reply
• Retweet
• Favorite

jimgeraghty@jimgeraghty

Is it now official U.S. policy that the First Amendment has an exception for "denigrating" religion, specifically Islam?

12 Sep 12

• Reply
• Retweet
• Favorite

DRUDGE REPORT@DRUDGE_REPORT

Muslims Attack US Embassies... drudge.tw/OpIWRs

12 Sep 12

• Reply
• Retweet
• Favorite

Rep. Allen West (R-FL), who has a history of anti-Islam bigotry, also released a statement this morning to the same effect:

Americans need to question whether the deaths of these innocent patriots could have been avoided. The Obama Administration touted the Arab Spring as an awakening of freedom, which we now see is a nightmare of Islamism.

Even more concerning, is the initial response to these attacks last night from the embassy officials of the Obama Administration was to apologize for a Facebook video that supposedly hurt Muslim feelings. President Obama’s policy of appeasement towards the Islamic world has manifested itself into a specter of unconscionable hatred.

And former Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin piled on:

The embassy actually apologized to the violent mob attacking us, and it even went so far as to chastise those who use free speech to “hurt the religious feelings of Muslims.” (Funny, the current administration has no problem hurting the “religious feelings” of Catholics.)