Eideard

Members of a Scarborough mosque have expressed shock and disbelief that their “nice” and “humble” religious leader has been charged with a string of sexual assaults. Mohammad Masroor, the imam at the Baitul Mukarram Islamic Society…faces 13 charges involving sexual offences and death threats relating to five alleged victims…

Det. Const. Karen Armstrong said Masroor used his position of leadership “to his advantage.” She said Masroor, who teaches in the mosque as well as in private homes, knew the alleged victims…

“The victims are both male and female,” Armstrong said. “We believe there are other victims as (the accused) has lived and worked worldwide.”

Masroor taught in Florida, Michigan and Bangladesh before coming to Canada, according to police. He has also lived and taught in Germany, France, Hungary, Singapore and Sri Lanka but police said the investigation is not limited to those areas…

Members of the mosque were especially upset that the allegations come during the holy month of Ramadan…

Yes, I think he’s actually a Romulan pretending to be a Vulcan.

Thanks, James

A 32-year-old man from Palm Springs, California, was arrested Wednesday on federal charges of threatening U.S. Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Washington, in two profane phone messages to McDermott’s Seattle office.

The messages were left, according to court records, as Congress was debating a tax and unemployment insurance bill that was eventually passed and signed into law on December 17…

Charles Turner Habermann is charged with threatening a federal official in two voicemails on December 10, according to the complaint filed by the U.S. Attorney’s office in Seattle. That charge carries a maximum prison sentence of 10 years, prosecutors said.

In the first voice message, a man authorities identified as Habermann threatens to kill McDermott, his friends and family.

“I’ll round them up, I’ll kill them, I’ll kill his friends, I’ll kill his family, I will kill everybody he (expletive) knows.” Habermann allegedly said in the voicemail message, according to an affidavit filed in federal court by FBI special agent Dean W. Giboney.

“I’d like to remind you McDermott that if you read the constitution all the money belongs to the people. None of it belongs to government,” Habermann allegedly said in the voicemail, according to the affidavit…

Habermann told agents that he never had any intention of hurting anyone because he had too much to lose, referring to a $3 million trust fund, the affidavit said.

What a wonderful guy.

In 2005, staffers in Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s office slit open mail to find red-tinged pennies and threatening notes in a scene fit for a new kind of movie genre, political horror.

“Not one red cent for war in Iraq,” an accompanying letter read.

FBI agents discovered that the red substance wasn’t blood but oil-based paint. Still, the sixth letter unnerved Pelosi’s staff.

The incident is one of at least 236 investigated by the FBI in the past decade and outlined in documents obtained by POLITICO under the Freedom of Information Act. An analysis of the cases reveals that serious death threats against lawmakers plummeted in the past 10 years, just as Congress’s overall public approval cratered.

But serious threats still occur, flaring up around heated political moments in the American conversation — from funding for the Iraq War, to the Elian Gonzales incident, to Napster, to immigration reform.

“It’s interesting that specific events and legislation can trigger death threats,” said Darrell West, vice president and director of governance studies at the Brookings Institution. “The popular image is that these people are crazy, not that they have policy motivations behind their anger. It’s interesting to see that connection…”

Pelosi’s office wasn’t alone in receiving Iraq War-related threats. The war seemed to be the impetus for a slew of the serious threats in the past decade.

In 2002, former Rep. Hilda Solis was sent a bullet covered in red paint. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) received a letter with “Let this be a warning” written in Latin…

Death threats flared up around other heated moments, even those unrelated to life-and-death policies…

The debate over whether Cuban refugee Elián Gonzalez should stay in the United States prompted threats from an angry group that identified itself as “the American Majority.”

“I sure hope your [sic] sorry ass is in the street the day I run it over with my truck,” the group wrote in a mailed letter to the Washington office of Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.).

In 2007, an immigration reform critic took his heated thoughts far beyond the bounds of news website comment threads, sending a letter to Sens. Jim DeMint and Lindsey Graham, both Republicans from South Carolina, threatening to drive to Washington “in a pickup truck loaded with dynamite” and blow up both senators if the immigration bill passed.

I’m not as surprised to see threats diminish in parallel to overall disapproval. Even nutball anarchists aren’t as likely to go off the deep end if there isn’t any alternative at all in Congress. What can you gain when the dweebs on both sides of the aisle have the courage and integrity of a hoe handle?

Anyone out there think the majority of their Congressional representatives aren’t beholden to one or another bloc of corporate lobbyists? Between the Chamber of Commerce/Oil Patch Boys, insurance companies, and pharmaceutical hustlers, there’s hardly anyone who isn’t owned. I’ll give you one or two principled individualists per state. Woo-hoo!