Rep. Lummis is fearful that Khalid Sheik Mohammed is scheduled for a jury trial in New York City. Most Republicans won't give New Yorkers (except the rich mayor) the time of day. Now they're all worked up, afraid that a raggedy band of Islamic extremists are so powerful that their very presence will instill terror in cops and firefighters and cab drivers and the other 9 million or so battle-hardened city dwellers.
Here's Lummis's statement today:
“The decision by the Obama Administration to allow the murderers of more than 3,000 Americans access to the federal court system will have serious negative implications for national security and the justice system. The terrorist attack orchestrated by KSM and his gang of brutal killers was an act of war against the United States and should be prosecuted by a military commission, not a common criminal court.
“It is unconscionable to think that these terrorists will enjoy the same legal rights and benefits guaranteed to U.S. citizens under the Constitution. That is why I joined Rep. Louie Gohmert in introducing legislation to amend the Military Commissions Act of 2009 to make it mandatory to try terrorists, like KSM, through military commissions.”
Obviously Rep. Lummis is not picky about the company she keeps in D.C. Rep. Louie Gohmert is a right-wing Texas fundamentalist. Lee Fang at Think Progress wrote about Rep. Gohmert's bizarre speech during the October House debate over the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Bill. He said that the bill
would lead to a legalization of necrophilia, pedophilia, and bestiality. Later in the speech, after reading lengthy passages from the Bible against homosexuality, Gohmert said that taking away “moral teaching in America” would create a situation similar to that of Germany in the “1920’s and 1930’s” when a “little guy with a mustache” took over:
GOHMERT: If you’re oriented toward animals, bestiality, then, you know, that’s not something that can be used, held against you or any bias be held against you for that. Which means you’d have to strike any laws against bestiality, if you’re oriented toward corpses, toward children, you know, there are all kinds of perversions, [...] pedophiles or necrophiliacs or what most would say is perverse sexual orientations but the trouble is, we made amendments to eliminate pedophiles from being included in the definition. [...] But people have always been willing to give up their liberties, their freedoms in order to gain economic stability. It happened in 1920 and 1930’s. Germany gave up their liberties to gain economic stability and they got a little guy with a mustache, who was the ultimate hate monger. And this is scary stuff we’re doing here when we take away what has traditionally been an important aspect of moral teaching in America.
Several times in the speech, Gohmert credited the conservative Christian “C Street” leader Chuck Colson for inspiration. Oddly, Gohmert also meandered into a self-defensive monologue about how he is not racist because he once voted for Alan Keyes, the birther leader who has said that President Obama is “a radical Communist” who “is going to destroy this country, and we are either going to stop him or the United States of America is going to cease to exist.”
That's odd. Don't those "C Street" Republicans revere old-line dictators such as the little guy with a mustache? Isn't it cute how a former judge, U.S. Army veteran and East Texas tough guy such as Gohmert can't even utter the name "Hitler?" Maybe it hits too close to home.
Rep. Lummis better watch out who she teams up with. Wyomingites, as a rule, don't care for extremists, whether they be from the right or the left. Hatred and fear don't seem to be family values in Cheyenne, at least not in my middle-class neighborhood. Maybe it's a different story for Lummis, who grew up in Cheyenne. Maybe she knows something I don't.
But I doubt it.
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