N.H. lawmakers say the darndest things: Conspiracists and birthers and Islamophobes, on my!
This week’s episode of Republican cray cray features a novel conspiracy theory to explain why Democrats support gun safety legislation; the resurrection of a four-year-old debunked report to dispute the authenticity of the President’s birth certificate; and a state rep who declares Muslims are “the most barbarous group of people on the face of the Earth” – except for basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
The conspiracist
State Rep. Max Abramson (R-Seabrook) took a break from posting 9/11 truther videos and anti-vaxxer myths to declare Democrats are coming for your guns because they’re in bed with organized crime and the crime bosses want their victims disarmed.
“The real reason that so many Democrats support gun prohibition,” he wrote on Facebook, “is that they are politically tied in with organized crime and don’t want armed victims. They are deliberately ruining this country – and you can’t fully appreciate that until you get actively involved in the process.” (As the only sitting lawmaker with a felony conviction, Abramson has first-hand information about the judicial process.)
To back up his claim, Abramson posted a link to a story about a California state senator who pleaded guilty to gun trafficking, along with a image including movie scenes from Goodfellas and The Godfather. “It is extremely important to criminals that we have gun control… drug control, gambling control, etc.,” the caption read.
The birther
Yesterday, state Rep. David Murotake (R-Nashua) posted the contents of a four-year-old discredited story that purportedly cast doubt on the authenticity of the President’s long-form birth certificate.
The piece related the story of Tim Adams, a former Hawaii elections clerk, who “signed an affidavit swearing he was told by his supervisors in Hawaii that no long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate existed for Barack Obama Jr. in Hawaii and that neither Queens Medical Center nor Kapi’olani Medical Center in Honolulu had any record of Obama having been born in their medical facilities.”
It was originally published by WND, an online publication the Southern Poverty Law Center describes as being devoted to “manipulative fear-mongering and outright fabrications designed to further the paranoid, gay-hating, conspiratorial and apocalyptic visions” of its founder, Joseph Farah.
The story, which fell apart soon after publication, has recently resurfaced in right-wing media. “Oh oh. Were the ‘Birthers’ right after all? Another piece of ‘evidence’ gets debunked,” Murotake wrote. “I’m not sure why it popped up, again, but I thought it would be worth republishing,” he added. “People forget this stuff…”
Snopes explained why people forget this stuff:
When the claim ran as an exclusive at WND in January 2011, the affidavit upon which it was based attested merely to hearsay and rumors. And while Adams initially asserted that he was not party to a purported ongoing search for Obama’s long-form birth certificate, he appeared months later claiming that he was an integral member of the birther investigation team as part of his six-month-long temp job at the elections division in 2008. Adams’ multiple recitations of things he claimed he heard didn’t amount to much when they first cropped up around Stormfront in 2010, and no new "information” accompanied them in 2015 when they were repeated on web sites as novel findings.
The Islamophobe
Last week, Rep. Don Leeman (R-Rochester) unleashed an anti-Muslim tirade on the Facebook page of a fellow representative, Rep. Gary Hopper (R-Weare).
“Let me remind you that the most barbarous group of people on the face of the Earth are all…MUSLIMS! I know of no other group that beheads innocent human beings who have simply exercised their God-given rights to change their religious beliefs. Only muslims do that! I know of no other group that beheads reporters who are merely going about the business of doing their jobs…” Leeman wrote.
“And lest we forget: How about the innocent people who were first beheaded and then crucified due to their religious beliefs? Who committed that crime?” he asked. “More muslims. All of them are terrorists…those who did these horrendous acts of barbarity. It does not seem to make any difference if they are Palestinians, or Saudis, or from any of the other muslim theocracies.”
Leeman then noted a single exception. “In my lifetime, I have met exactly ONE muslim for whom I had any respect at all,” he wrote. “No, it had nothing to do with the fact that he is 7'2" tall. It had everything to do with the fact that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar kept his religious beliefs to himself and was not known to try to get anyone to change their own beliefs in order to follow his beliefs. He was also one of the greatest basketball players in the history of the NBA,” Leeman added.
“You’ve not known many muslims then,” a visitor replied.
"As I said, I’ve only met one who I respect,” answered Leeman. “Then there is Muhammad Ali….the boxer who refused to fight for his Country. COWARD!”