
Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC) announced on Tuesday that after 18 years in Congress she will retire.
With a safe Republican seat in Congress, it really does seem plausible that this was simply a retirement based on a desire to move on in life, after such a lengthy time of service.
But in the process, Myrick leaves behind a lengthy record -- of some amazing comments about alleged Muslim infiltration of the United States. So before we lose the chance, let's relive the memories.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Republican Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC) often appears on Fox News to discuss her theory that agents of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah are infiltrating the U.S. through the Mexican border by posing as illegal immigrants.
On Sunday, former (and possibly future) presidential candidate Mike Huckabee was shocked that the Obama Administration is ignoring the threat: "This porous border, where we see people running across at will, if Hezbollah, a very, very deadly terrorist organization, can use that network to get into the U.S., all of these pat-downs at the airport are meaningless."
Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC) thinks that agents of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah are posing as illegal immigrants -- "going to Venezuela, learning Spanish, and then coming up through Mexico with fake documents trying to cross the border."
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC), who we last encountered exposing Muslim intern spies on Capitol Hill and terrorists in the nation's convenience stores, has issued her most startling warning yet: Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, she has come to believe, is partnering with Mexican drug cartels in the U.S. borderlands and may be planning "Israel-like car bombings of Mexican/USA border personnel or National Guard units."
In a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Myrick calls for a task force "to engage US and Mexican law enforcement and border patrol officials about Hezbollah's presence, activities, and connections to gangs and drug cartels."
Myrick says she has to come believe that Hezbollah is operating on the border because of evidence well, wouldn't that be crazy? She writes:
Fresh off a tense town hall with Muslim constituents last month, Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC) has blasted out a letter enthusiastically endorsing the group ACT! For America, and its leader, Brigitte Gabriel, who has made a number of extreme comments against Muslims.
ACT! For America's national conference and legislative briefing is scheduled for June in Washington, D.C. The group describes itself as "a collective voice for the democratic values of Western Civilization, such as the celebration of life and liberty, as opposed to the authoritarian values of Islamofascism, such as the celebration of death, terror and tyranny."
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (1)Muslim constituents repeatedly challenged Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC) at an emotional town hall meeting in Charlotte Thursday, with Myrick scrambling to distance herself from the Islam-bashing co-author of the book Muslim Mafia, whose foreword was written by the congresswoman herself.
Myrick has had a tense relationship with her district's Muslim community for many years, but it's been aggravated recently by her campaign to investigate undercover Muslim intern "spies" on Capitol Hill.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (8)At a town hall meeting with the Muslim community Thursday, Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC) seemed to defend comments she made in 2003 about the terrorist threat emanating from the people who run "all the convenience stores across the country."
"I wasn't off the wall," she said, according to the Charlotte Observer. "It may have come across that way, but you have to put it in context."
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (4)Fed up with the mainstream media filter, Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC) is taking her quest to inform Americans about the threat of jihad to the Internet -- namely, YouTube -- in a new weekly terror news video series that will be featured on her congressional Web site.
The first two episodes -- "Beyond Terrorism -The Whole Story" and "Fort Hood - What You're Not Hearing" -- are presented in a news magazine format, with Myrick speaking in front of a grey screen, flanked by an American flag and a plant. In the Fort Hood episode, Myrick "interviews" authors like Walid Phares of the conservative Foundation for Defense of Democracies (while she asks them direct questions, Myrick does not seem to actually be in the room with her interlocutors).
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (4)The author of the book Muslim Mafia, which was based on documents taken by the author's son while he was posing as a Muslim intern at the Council on American Islamic Relations, has agreed to return all documents and recordings obtained during the time at CAIR, according to a draft consent order filed in court yesterday.
The draft order, agreed to by attorneys for CAIR as well as for Dave Gaubatz and his son Chris, was filed along with a joint motion asking the judge to enter the order.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (1)Via Dave Weigel, it looks like Tom Coburn (R-OK) has become the first senator to cast his lot with the group of House Republicans pursuing a campaign against the Council on American Islamic Relations.
Though not explicitly invoked in a new letter to the IRS, the effort stems from purported revelations in the book Muslim Mafia, whose author recently made -- then retracted -- a call for a "backlash" against Muslims in the wake of the Fort Hood shootings.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (1)Muslim Mafia scribe Dave Gaubatz is planning an investigative counterterrorism project in the Sunni mosques of North Carolina, and one lucky donor to the project will be invited to join his crack team of researchers. Needed for the job, according to an "urgent" post on Gaubatz's blog: $25,000, two motorcycles, and use of one class A RV for 30 days.
The project starts Dec. 5 and the "highest donor can travel on team" and "will work alongside Dave Gaubatz the entire 30 days," according to the cached version of the blog post.
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Yesterday, the conservative author of the new book Muslim Mafia, the foreword of which was penned by Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC), explicitly called for a "professional and legal backlash against the Muslim community and their leaders" in response to the Fort Hood shootings.
So last night, we called Myrick's office to see if she had a response to Dave Gaubatz's remarks, given that his book, with her foreword, was released just last month. Since then, Myrick and three other House Republicans have cited the book as the source of their calls for a probe of Muslim intern "spies" in Congress.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)A conservative author whose book was touted just last month by four Republican members of Congress is explicitly calling for a "backlash" against American Muslims in the wake of the Fort Hood shootings.
Dave Gaubatz, author of Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld that's Conspiring to Islamize America, made the comment in a semi-coherent interview with the group Family Security Matters.
In assigning collective blame for the Fort Hood killings, Gaubatz said:
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (5)Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC), who wrote the foreword to Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld that's Conspiring to Islamize America, said today she is "very concerned" about infiltration of the military by jihadists.
"We can't continue to be so politically correct that we're going to say this wasn't religiously motivated," Myrick told the Charlotte, North Carolina, CBS affiliate. She noted the reports that Nidal Malik Hasan shouted "Allahu Akbar" before he allegedly opened fire in the shooting spree at Fort Hood Thursday.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (5)In a strongly-worded statement today, the Congressional Tri-Caucus, which represents three minority caucuses, denounced a call by four GOP lawmakers for an investigation into whether Muslim "intern spies" have infiltrated the Hill.
"These charges smack of an America of sixty years ago where lists of 'un-American' agitators were identified," said Reps. Michael Honda (D-CA), Barbara Lee (D-CA), and Nydia Velazquez (D-NY). They are the chairs of the Asian Pacific American Caucus, the Black Caucus, and the Hispanic Caucus, respectively.
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After a week delay, four Republican lawmakers have formally asked the House sergeant at arms to investigate whether a Muslim advocacy group placed interns in national security committees, a spokesperson for the sergeant at arms confirmed to TPMmuckraker this afternoon.
Spokesperson Kerri Hanley would only say that a letter requesting a probe of the Council on American Islamic Relations was received today and that it is under review.
The letter, which you can read in full here, claims that CAIR is tied to "HAMAS" and cites the new WND-published book Muslim Mafia, written by a man who has labeled President Obama "Muslim":
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (2)What's the deal with conservatives saying they're going to contact law enforcement over their political opponents' latest outrage -- before turning out to apparently be full of it?
Last week, Rep. Sue Myrick's office told us that, despite her claims to have uncovered a plot by radical Islamists to use interns to infiltrate Capitol Hill, they hadn't actually gotten around to formally asking the authorities to investigate.
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Four Republican lawmakers have not submitted a request to the House sergeant at arms to investigate a threat that one of the four described as a terrorist-linked group possibly "running influence operations or planting spies in key national security-related offices."
A spokesperson for the sergeant at arms told TPMmuckraker this morning that the office was aware of the charge by GOP members at a press conference Wednesday that the Council on American-Islamic Relations planted Muslim intern spies on the Hill for purposes of subversion. But, says spokesperson Kerri Hanley, the office hasn't received a request for an investigation, and it wouldn't launch any probe until such a request is made.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (4)Suhail Khan has seen this happen before. He was working as a senior political appointee for the Bush White House through Sept. 11, 2001, until this past January.
The same crowd of what he calls "professional bigots" -- people, he says, like Frank Gaffney and Dave Gaubatz -- have launched campaigns against specific Muslims working in the government, accusing them of terrorist sympathies.
The only thing different about the call by four House Republicans this week for authorities to investigate alleged "infiltration" of the Hill by Muslim interns, Khan told TPMmuckraker today, is that "they're not going after individuals by name."
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (5)Remember how the House sergeant at arms hadn't heard of the call Wednesday by four GOP lawmakers for a probe of alleged infiltration of the Hill by Muslim intern subversives?
It turns out that's because Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC), the de facto leader of the group, who also wrote the foreword for the book on which the charges are based, hasn't yet submitted a request for an investigation, Myrick's office tells TPMmuckraker.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (1)Last night, Rachel Maddow took on the "Muslim intern spy" story we've been covering. Unfortunately, she didn't touch on the real intern spy angle here -- that of the man who grew a beard and posed as a Muslim to infiltrate the Council on American-Islamic Relations as an intern.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (5)We told you earlier about the strong statements from Reps. John Conyers (D-MI) and André Carson (D-IN) denouncing the call by four Republicans for the sergeant at arms to probe whether a Muslim advocacy group planted "intern spies" on the Hill.
But it looks like Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-CA) was first out of the gate on this one.
She released this statement yesterday:
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (3)Let's take a closer look at the co-author of Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That's Conspiring to Islamize America, just out from WND Books, and now at #16 among all books on Amazon.
That would be David Gaubatz, a former Air Force investigator and Arabic speaker, who dispatched his son Chris to grow a beard and go undercover as a Muslim to obtain an internship at the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Gaubatz, who has long warned about the threat of Islamism in the United States, has claimed that he found Saddam's long-lost WMDs while in Iraq and has labeled Obama "Muslim" and a "self-admitted 'crack head.'"
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (11)Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC) is today pressing on in the campaign against supposed infiltration of terrorist-linked Muslim interns in key national security committees on Capitol Hill.
As we told you yesterday, the charges are based on a book published by WorldNetDaily, which draws on the work of an actual intern spy, the son of the co-author who went undercover at the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
An animated Myrick complained on Fox News this morning that "quite frankly, [CAIR makes] everybody else look like they're being paranoid by saying anything about them."
Here's the video of the Myrick segment:
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (3)Here it is, the highlights of the press conference in which four House Republicans, relying on the work of a WND-published book based an intern spy's infiltration of the Council on American Islamic Relations, charging that CAIR itself is planting scary Muslim interns on national security committees.
The representatives in the video after the jump are: Sue Myrick (R-NC), John Shadegg (R-AZ), Paul Broun (R-GA) and Trent Franks (R-AZ).
J'accuse!
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Four House Republicans are charging that the Council on American Islamic Relations is infiltrating Capitol Hill with undercover interns, and they're basing the charge on a WND-published book that itself is based on the work of a man who posed as a Muslim to infiltrate CAIR as ... an intern!
In other words, it's Intern Spy vs. Intern Spy.
As Greg Sargent notes, the office of Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC) does not have a list of the "Manchurian Interns" that she claims may have penetrated national security-related committees.
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