Taxpayers forced to bankroll GOP's mosque tantrum

The Republicans are such failures that they're building most of their national campaign around the "Ground Zero mosque" that they lie about.

Then again, why not? The GOP can't run on the economy, since everybody knows they caused the recession. They can't run on opposing the stimulus package, because that just reminds people of why the stimulus was needed in the first place. They can't run on - well, anything.

The "Ground Zero mosque" issue is going to go just as badly for them. For starts, they're lying about the location of it. They keep claiming that the proposed Muslim community center - known as Park51 - is on the former World Trade Center site, when actually it's several blocks away. So the GOP lied.

Maddeningly, this idiotic meme is being funded by the taxpayers.

In 1998, a right-wing Congress created the U.S. Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). Congress claimed the purpose of this panel was to monitor religious freedom around the world. But - like everything else by the GOP Congress of that era - this has turned out to be yet another lie. This commission still exists and is still financed entirely by the federal government (i.e., the taxpayers), which gives it $4,300,000 a year. Leaders of this commission now say that Muslims aren't free to build a community center anywhere in New York.

You read that right: A committee that's supposed to protect religious freedom is trying to deny religious freedom to Muslims.

USCIRF has also been the target of an EEOC complaint because it discriminates against Muslim employees.

One of USCIRF's 9 members is right-wing extremist Nina Shea, who has long been a mucketymuck in the neoconservative world. Shea has tried to block Park51 from being built.

USCIRF chair Leonard Leo has also tried to block it. Leo is a big shot in the extreme-right Federalist Society and is director of Liberty Central, a Tea Party group. The misnamed Liberty Central has begun a petition drive against Park51.

Another USCIRF panelist, Richard Land, has also publicly opposed Park51.

If Congress can defund ACORN, why can't they defund USCIRF?

What's significant from an electoral standpoint is that the taxpayers are being forced to bankroll a Republican campaign theme. The GOP machine is so interlocked with USCRIF that this committee is little more than a partisan arm.

(Source: http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/08/commission-international-religious-freedom-ground-zero-mosque)