person:louie gohmert

The Border Is Not a Battlefield It’s more like a fortified check-in counter

Tall tales have always sprung from Texas, but the last few months have seen an uptick in their production. Beholding the procession of unaccompanied minors and young families arriving in the United States from Central America, Republican Representative Louie Gohmert, whose district is closer to Little Rock than the Rio Grande, likened the migrants to the Allied forces coming ashore at Normandy. Rick Perry, who has deployed 1,000 National Guardsmen to bolster the already sizeable law enforcement presence, dubbed the borderlands a “battlefield.” Measured by boots on the ground, that may be true, but in this case the other side lacks the element of surprise and has a habit of turning itself in. A war zone, it is not.

▻http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119030/border-crisis-inside-well-garded-rio-grande

#USA #Etats-Unis #frontière #Mexique

3 U.S. lawmakers who have generated controversy for their statements about Islam and Muslim Americans released a video praising the Egyptian military and thanking it for staging the July 3 and subsequent crackdowns against their “common enemy,” the Muslim Brotherhood.

▻http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/09/07/heres-michele-bachmann-thanking-the-egyptian-military-for-the-coup-a

The video, apparently taken a few hours after meeting with coup leader General Abdel Fatah el-Sissi in Cairo, features Rep. Michele Bachmann reading a statement to the camera. She’s flanked by Reps. Steve King and Louie Gohmert.
The video, posted below, is a doozy. Bachmann, presumably supported by King and Gohmert, offers fulsome praise for the coup and the military-led government’s subsequent actions, describing its crackdowns against sit-ins and demonstrations as “the front lines” in “the war on terrorism.” She described the Muslim Brotherhood as a common enemy and a “great evil,” implying that it had been responsible for the attacks against the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001. King and Gohmert offered similar but more tempered remarks.
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“I want to assure the people of Egypt that I, as a member of Congress, will stand strong in support of continuing military support, United States support financially, to stand for the military in Egypt,” she said. “We know that you have been a partner. You’ve been a partner in the war on terrorism. You’ve acted bravely here on the front lines.”

#USA #Egypt #army #terrorism