• Listen to this segment

• Listen to the entire program

The Right Hook, a weekly segment which covers the machinations of the right wing, from the Republican Party to the Tea Party Patriots, and beyond. By Chris Bennett

This week, the House Homeland Security Committee will host a witch-hunt, or rather hearings on the radicalization of American Muslims. Who will lead the hearings? Committee Chairman Peter King of New York, the “avowed” supporter of a terrorist organization, The Irish Republican Army. Back in his heyday as a quasi-ambassador for the IRA in the U.S., King visited Ireland frequently. He even stayed at the home of a senior IRA militant in charge of terror operations in Belfast. Said King in 1985 “if civilians are killed in an attack on a military installation, it is certainly regrettable, but I will not morally blame the IRA for it.” King won’t hold the actual terrorists he palled around with accountable for their murders. But, he will try to score some cheap political points by painting American Muslims with the terrorist brush.

Speaking of radicalization in America, it’s been a big week on the Hate-O-Meter for the Tea Party. Video has surfaced from a Tea Party protest of a fundraising event by Muslims in Orange County, CA. Members of the local Tea Party group “We Surround Them OC” organized the protest outside the Yorba Linda Community Center. The event was to raise funds to help homeless people and victims of domestic violence. The Tea Party protestors took issue with two of the attendees: an imam at a Brooklyn mosque, and a Bay Area Islamic activist. Legitimate protests are all well and good, but things soon devolved, Tea Party style, into ignorance and racism. Villa Park Councilwoman, Republican Deborah Pauly, spoke at the rally and really set the tone by saying “As a matter of fact I know quite a few Marines who will be happy to help these terrorists to an early meeting in paradise.” Just remember, the Tea Party is not a racist organization.

Last Friday, Utah succeeded in becoming the only other state to pass an Arizona style immigration law. Dubbed the “Utah Compact” the bill creates ID cards for “guest workers” and their families but does not mandate that police run immigration checks on people they only suspect are undocumented. Though the bill passed both houses easily, right-wing lawmakers have run up against opposition to harsh immigration policies from unlikely groups– business owners and police. Utahans seem to want a less radical policy from Arizona’s. Or, in these days of lean budgets, Utahans may simply want to avoid being sued by the federal government. The Utah Compact is being billed as a refreshing change from SB1070, but it does require immigrants who qualify for the guest worker program to pay up to $2,500 in fines.

From Arizona this week, are two bills that would give governor Jan Brewer the power to call up a so-called state guard. Two members of the Arizona State Guard, LLC have voiced support for the bills in committee hearings. Despite the official sounding name, the Arizona State Guard is a militia of irregulars currently training in the Arizona desert. According to Stephen Lemons of the Phoenix New Times, the militia has also accepted a “gig” to provide security at a picnic– a so-called Border Protection Picnic later this month. Dubbed Rifle Stock, the picnickers are going 75 miles southwest of Tucson, with a “fury in [their message] and passion for America in [their] hearts.” Rifle Stock bills itself as a successor to Woodstock, and as a fun Spring Break destination. There won’t be any music, but there will be lots of training and target practice. Avowed right-wing extremist, Frank Shein calls Rifle Stock the “rumble in the desert of Arizona.” Should the measure to form an Arizona state guard pass Russell Pearce’s legislature, Arizonans will have yet another group of extremists to deal with– only this time they’ll be fully deputized, armed, and on the state payroll.