If screwing up coffee orders and forgetting to change the ink in the copy machine are threats to national security, they may be right.
Shadegg and Franks are part of a coalition of Republican lawmakers calling for an investigation into Muslim interns who are working in congressional offices and other high-level government agencies like the Department of Homeland Security and the Central Intelligence Agency.
The concern, according to the congressmen, stems from an internal memo they discovered from the Islamic advocacy group Council on American Islamic Relations, where the group says it plans to "focus on influencing congressmen responsible for policy that directly impacts the American Muslim community."
The other cause for alarm is a book by Paul Sperry called Muslim Mafia, which just happens to come out Thursday and has a foreword written by North Carolina Representative Sue Myrick, who is also pushing for the investigation.
We hadn't realized congressional interns were now influencing policy decisions but, hey, considering the current state of the federal government, they couldn't do much worse than the clowns running the show now.
A Muslim fundamentalist working in sensitive areas of the government is probably not the best candidate for the job, but these are interns. Most, if not all, are just college kids who got the opportunity to work in Congress for a few months.
We called Congressman Shadegg late yesterday to try to find out what threat these coffee fillers could actually pose, but he is yet to get back to us.
Congressman Franks, on the other hand, issued a statement.
"I take the charges levied against CAIR and laid out in this book very seriously because they affect our national security," Franks says. "This Congress must be deliberate in taking a strong stance against those groups and organizations that align themselves with terrorists."
CAIR was named by federal prosecutors as an unindicted co-conspirator for allegedly helping fund Hamas. There was never any conviction, and CAIR is one of the leading voices in condemning terrorism. In fact, CAIR was one of the first Muslim groups to condemn the 9-11 attacks and even took out an ad in the Washington Post expressing its outrage.
Franks continues:
"We live in a post-9/11 world where the coincidence of nuclear proliferation and Islamic rrorism pose a very dangerous combination and real threat to America's national security, That is why it is critical, in light of the well supported documents and information, that the U.S. Congress take this issue seriously."
"Oh Yeah!" Sounds like somebody drank the "Muslim Mafia" Kool-Aid.
