Jack & Jill Politics

After saying numerous offensive, bizarre and crazy things on the nation’s airwaves, Rand Paul– Tea Party candidate for Senate in Kentucky — canceled his appearance on Meet the Press. According to a producer at MTP:

“The only other two people to cancel have been Louis Farrakhan and Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia.”

I’ve got more, much more to say on the topic of Rand Paul and what he represents. But first, let’s dig deeper into the new, extremely exclusive little club in which Paul now finds himself. Paul, who…and I’m just guessing here…probably takes a dim view of Muslims here and abroad now now joins 2 of the more famous (or infamous) of refusing to literally and figuratively meet the press. Why would I say that? Here’s his positions from his own campaign website.

On National Defense:

I propose a moratorium on Visas from about ten rogue nations or anybody that has traveled to those nations. I would keep this in place until our government proves they can manage intelligently our Visa process.

I believe we try the terrorists captured on the battlefield in military tribunals at GITMO. I do not believe in trying them in civilian court.

(Jill’s Note: Observe that he doesn’t say which nations — just “about ten.” Most of which…and I’m just guessing here…are probably mostly majority-Muslim. Does this moratorium include dissidents, people with medical conditions and those seeking asylum?)

On Immigration:

My plans include an underground electric fence, with helicopter stations to respond quickly to breaches of the border. Instead of closing military bases at home and renting space in Europe, I am open to the construction of bases to protect our border.

An underground electric fence? Militarized borders that announce to our neighboring countries that we see them and their citizens less as allies & trading partners but more as enemies? And…I’m just guessing here…what makes me think that this electric fence will not be built on our Canadian border first?

Anyway, I’m having trouble finding out when and why Farrakhan backed out of going on Meet the Press originally. I’m guessing it may have something to do with his penchant for making interesting statements like these:

So I said to the members of the press, ‘Why won’t you go and look into what we are saying about the threats on Reverend Jackson’s life?’ Here the Jews don’t like Farrakhan and so they call me ‘Hitler’. Well that’s a good name. Hitler was a very great man. He wasn’t great for me as a Black man but he was a great German and he rose Germany up from the ashes of her defeat by the united force of all of Europe and America after the First World War. Yet Hitler took Germany from the ashes and rose her up and made her the greatest fighting machine of the twentieth century, brothers and sisters, and even though Europe and America had deciphered the code that Hitler was using to speak to his chiefs of staff, they still had trouble defeating Hitler even after knowing his plans in advance. Now I’m not proud of Hitler’s evil toward Jewish people, but that’s a matter of record. He rose Germany up from nothing. Well, in a sense you could say there is a similarity in that we are rising our people up from nothing, but don’t compare me with your wicked killers. — March 11, 1984 speech broadcast on a Chicago radio station

“I believe that for the small numbers of Jewish people in the United States, they exercise a tremendous amount of influence on the affairs of government…Yes, they exercise extraordinary control, and Black people will never be free in this country until they are free of that kind of control…

To continue to point out the truth of that control and how that control never will allow us to be full and completely men, free, justified, and equal. Why should we be controlled by the power, influence, and money of others? We should not be under that kind of control…going to Jewish philanthropists, begging them for money to support our causes, and through that money, there is control, and that kind of control limits the freedom of our people to speak freely, write freely, think freely, and act as free men…” — Meet The Press interview, 4/14/97

As far as Prince Bandar goes, for many years he was the leading Saudi spokesperson, booster and apologist here in the States as U.S. Ambassador for Saudi Arabia. Maybe I’m stretching the notion of Black Muslim here, but folks I’m here to tell you that His Highness looks an awful lot like my cousin Sonny who has a lovely double-wide trailer in the Raleigh-Durham area and that includes his close-cropped, very very curly hair.

Again, I’m having trouble finding out why the Prince exactly when and why the Prince backed out of a Meet the Press interview. I can only guess that it might have something to do with his controversial relationship with George W. Bush regarding the Iraq War. Or maybe it was about this now-25 year old unresolved scandal (thanks Wikipedia!):

Bandar helped negotiate the 1985 Al Yamamah deal, a series of massive arms sales by the United Kingdom to Saudi Arabia worth GB£40 billion (US$80 billion), including the sale of more than 100 warplanes. After the deal was signed, British arms manufacturer British Aerospace (now BAE Systems) allegedly funnelled secret payments of at least GB£1 billion (US$2 billion) into two Saudi embassy accounts in Washington, in yearly instalments of up to GB£120 million (US$240 million) over at least 10 years. Bandar allegedly took money for personal use out of the accounts, as the purpose of one of the accounts was to pay the operating expenses of the prince’s private Airbus A340. According to investigators, there was “no distinction between the accounts of the embassy, or official government accounts […], and the accounts of the royal family.” The payments were discovered during a Serious Fraud Office investigation, which was stopped in December 2006 by attorney general Lord Goldsmith.^[9][10] In 2009, Louis Freeh was hired by Saudi Arabian Prince Bandar bin Sultan as his legal representative on issues surrounding the Al-Yamamah arms deal, appearing April 7, 2009 on the PBS series Frontline: Black Money.^[11]

In short, just so we’re all on the same page, Rand Paul now joins Louis Farrakhan – professional calypso singer & anti-semite and Prince Bandar (I’m not even sure where to start — svengali/alleged money launderer?) as men so clouded by scandal and seemingly so unable to respond to questions in a national forum that would improve and not further damage their reputation that they actually turned tail, ran and hid from the American people. It makes one wonder: what more in common does Paul have with the Prince and Farrakhan? Is he secretly a black and/or Middle Eastern Muslim, for example? <– I’m kidding. Sort of. But seriously — I find it odd that no one has asked Paul about issues like religious tolerance or immigration. Or his strange passion for de-regulating homeschooling. Intolerance tends to extend across issues — it’s time that Rand Paul clarified his stance beyond the Civil Rights Act. And I think we should all get a lot more curious about the kind of company Paul is keeping, which apparently might include Neo-Nazis…?