Ah, another bright bulb from my home state. Shouldn't be too big of a surprise though that it comes from the same guy who, when critisized for having lawn jockeys in his yard, responded by painting them white.
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U.S. Rep. Cass Ballenger blames the breakup of his 50-year marriage partly on the stress of living near a leading American Muslim advocacy group that he and his wife worried was so close to the U.S. Capitol that "they could blow the place up."
The nine-term Republican lawmaker, in an interview with The Charlotte Observer published Saturday, called the Council on American-Islamic Relations -- whose headquarters are across the street from his Capitol Hill home -- a "fund-raising arm" for terrorist groups and said he reported CAIR to the FBI and CIA.
<snip>
In addition to CAIR, he told the newspaper that another stress on the marriage was the 1995 decision by "holier-than-thou Republicans" in the House to ban gifts from lobbyists. The meals and theater tickets from lobbyists once meant "a social life for (congressional) wives," Ballenger said.
Ballenger's wife also said the move by "do-goody Republicans" to restrict the money spent on members of Congress and their spouses had helped turn Washington into a less desirable place to live. "Just a dinner now and then" would do no harm, she said.
Last December, Ballenger also drew criticism when he said then-Rep. Cynthia McKinney, a black Democrat from Georgia known for her abrasive style, had stirred in him "a little bit of a segregationist feeling."
<snip>
Ballenger said in the latest interview that after the 2001 terrorist attacks, his wife was anxious about all the activity at CAIR, including people unloading boxes late at night and women "wearing hoods," or headscarves, going in and out of the office building.
http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-congressman-muslim-group,0,3176166.story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines
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