WASHINGTON, DC — Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich called Tuesday for the creation of a congressional commission to examine the radical Islamic terrorist threat.
Gingrich said Tuesday in a Facebook video chat:
We can no more afford to have fanatic terrorists at home just because they’re American citizens, be allowed to run around, get organized and kill people, than we can afford to bring in thousands of unvetted and unverified Syrian refugees. So I believe the president is profoundly, fundamentally wrong. I believe the Congress should create a commission on Islamic supremacism and terrorism in the United States. I think we should start looking at serious new laws.
“The president does America and the West a great disservice by suggesting that accurately describing Islamic supremacists means we have to be at war with Islam. That’s not true,” Gingrich added.
Gingrich noted that he welcomes the “modern Muslim” who accepts the authority of “secular law” and the reality of “diversity,” but that adherents of Sharia law should be inadmissible to the United States.
“But, if you believe in sharia, and genuinely believe in it, if you think that gays and lesbians ought to be killed, if you think that Christians and Jews and Baha’i and others ought to either submit or be killed, we have a lot of disagreement,” Gingrich said. “If you want to support terrorist movements with money, with recruitment, with propaganda, then you’re our enemy. And the president doesn’t come to grips with this.”
Gingrich is a big proponent of creating “foresight hearings” instead of “oversight” hearings, to prioritize problem-solving instead of merely ceremonial punishment for government employees who have done wrong.
Washington Post associate editor David Maraniss challenged Gingrich’s idea:
Yet another Orwellian moment: Newt Gingrich stunningly out-Trumps Trump – calls for revival of House unAmerican Activities Committee.
— david maraniss (@davidmaraniss) June 14, 2016
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