The National Republican Campaign Committee (the NRCC) has chosen to keep donations made by one of their major contributors, Abdul Tawala Ibn Ali Alishtari.
According to the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York's office, Mr. Alishtari was taken into custody "on charges of terrorism financing, material support of terrorism, and international money laundering, as well as additional charges of conspiracy and wire fraud."
The House Republicans are keeping terrorist cash.
Imagine, if you would, what would happen in the traditional media if the DNC was caught taking cash from a material supporter of the Taliban, or of Al-Qaida? If Howard Dean had accepted a check from a terrorist backer.... and then refused to give the money back?
Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter live to breathlessly invent such scenarios in the feverswamp of fantasy scenarios that is their wingnut sideshow existence.
Well, now we know what the Republicans will do when faced with such an event and finds that they are short on cash, "go on, take the money and run".
For years, the GOP and the extreme rightwing that is the heart and soul of the Republican party has questioned OUR patriotism. Damned us as traitors. Invented urban myths and outright lies about liberal betrayals of the United States to our enemies. They even made a movie inventing conversations that didn't happen to make the Democratic party and a Democratic President look responsible for an attack that occurred on a Republican President's watch. A man who was dumbstruck and frozen in indecision in front of a class full of children on 9-11.
The GOP took money from a man who supports Jihad, they know he supports Jihad now, and they are keeping the money anyway.
It's time to make a bigger deal of this. When this story broke with the arrest of this man, I thought this was an outrage.
That it was the biggest refutation of the Republican parties alleged "national security advantage". Everything the GOP says about itself, and about what the Democratic party is about, is put into question, very simply and very easily understood, by this story I thought.
But I was wrong. Oh, so wrong.
The Republican terror backer's existence and arrest are not the biggest refutations of the GOP's phony "national security advantage" and the rest of it at all.
This is: A terrorist gave them money, they know who he is now, and they are keeping the cash. And they are getting away with it.
Fellow Democrats and progressives, the House Republicans are taking cold hard cash from a man who is alleged to have provided support to people who want to kill Americans at home and abroad.
And they are getting away with it. Forget the Dubai ports debacle. The Foley scandal. This should be the greatest disaster to hit the right in years.
Link to the DCCC for more
To the mythology of the American rightwing and the GOP this is like the Foley scandal on steroids. You don't get more craven and damning than this.
Why aren't we using this to crucify the GOP? This is about a heck of a lot more than breaking a meme for good, this is about our national security and the future of our country.
The party that jerked the color-coded terrorist alert cartoons up and down all the way until the Kerry v. Bush election, and then made that chart virtually disappear afterwards, takes money from a terrorist too?
And we are worried about the Nevada Democratic party having a debate with Fox News in charge as a big threat to the future of the party? If we don't call the GOP on this, how can anybody expect the Democratic party to call the GOP and its wretched echochamber of lies on anything?