After the horrific attack on Bastille Day revelers in Nice, France last night, Donald Trump and Newt Gingrich made some inflammatory statements. Trump went on O'Reilly's show and they agreed that starting a World War was probably a good idea. Then Newt upped the ante by suggesting that we institute a Stasi/Gestapo type "religious test" task force to go door to door to question all Muslims as to whether they believe in Sharia and if so, to deport them.
Here is what Newt said on Hannity last night:
"We should frankly test every person here who is of a Muslim background, and if they believe in Sharia, they should be deported. Sharia is incompatible with Western civilization. Modern Muslims who have given up Sharia, glad to have them as citizens. Perfectly happy to have them next door. But we need to be fairly relentless about defining who our enemies are. Anybody who goes on a website favoring ISIS, or Al Qaeda, or other terrorist groups, that should be a felony, and they should go to jail. Any organization which hosts such a website should be engaged in a felony. It should be closed down immediately."
Hold your horses there, Newt. This is insanity. Millions and millions of American born citizens are Muslim. You can't deport Americans based on their religion because of a little thing called the Constitution. Clearly Newt forgot that.
On Morning Joe today, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) joined Mika and Joe to talk about Newt's bizarre, unconstitutional racist and Islamophobic statements.
BRZEZINSKI: Your reaction, sir, to Speaker Gingrich's comments?
ELLISON: I think that he simply doesn't understand the nature of the conflict, and it just proves why he could never be anywhere close to power, because he is intemperate, doesn't understand the conflict, and actually is going to cause more problems than he would ever solve.....we should treat people the way we would expect under our first amendment, freedom of religion, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly....
BRZEZINSKI: What frightens me about his comments is that I think he knows better.
ELLISON: He does know better. That's the sad thing about Newt Gingrich. He's a very smart man, it's just calculating, pandering, and it's really sad.
I had to go back and reread the transcript because it sounds like he is talking about Trump as well. Regardless, Trump announced just an hour ago that he has selected the bigoted, pro smoking, anti LGBT, pro choice Governor of Indiana as his VP.
Poor Newt. always the bridesmaid, never the bride.
