Future ex-Congressman Peter Roskam missed 3 critical postal facility renaming votes today in order to hold a news conference where he demonstrated the entirety of his limited repertoire: sowing fear among his constituents, bashing the Obama administration, and whipping his teabagger base up into a frenzy.
Roskam joined with the also soon-to-be retired Congressman and notable flip-flopper Mark Kirk (who was for closing Guantanamo before he was against it), Congresswoman Judy Biggert, and Congressman Don Manzullo to protest the administration’s proposal to bring prisoners from the Guantanamo Bay detention center to a largely unused facility in Thomson, Illinois.
Roskam asserts that that to bring these prisoners to Illinois would put the public at risk and “dissuade businesses from coming to the state”.
“The Obama administration’s utter inability to create jobs here does not somehow make sending some of the world’s worst terrorists to our backyard a good idea,”
And if we are to believe Mark Kirk (who actually voted for the Guantanamo closure before he fell in love with Sarah Palin), Osama Bin Laden himself is likely to take up residence in Skokie and Chicago’s most prominent landmarks immediately destroyed.
All of this is, of course, a big load of hooey. The transfer could produce 2,000-3,000 job in a state that badly needs jobs. And the state has for some time already housed terrorists in federal facilities without any of the problems that the “Frightening Four” predict.
Fred Kaplan at Slate does an excellent job of destroying Roskam and his crew’s phoney arguements: There Are Already 355 Terrorists in American Prisons.
It’s pretty sad that this is all the Congresman has to offer his constituency:
- We can’t address climate change because the entire economy will collapse
- We can’t provide decent healthcare to all Americans because it will bankrupt our children
- We can’t do the right thing and close Guantanamo because Illinois will be destroyed by Jihadists
I’m pretty sick of Roskam’s scare tactics but fortunately, we can now choose hope instead of fear. Ben Lowe’s campaign to replace Roskam in Congress is off to a good start and Ben is offering the district real solutions when Roskam offers only fear.
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