21 November 2016 – Arliss’ illness has struck again, landing her in the hospital again. By Sunday, she was resting somewhat comfortably at home. As this is a recurring illness, she’ll be seeing a specialist again this week. This is a medical problem which is being handled, it will just take some time. We will have a few more cancellations for medical reasons in the future before all is said and done, but I’ll let her update you on the specifics there. I spoke with her on Sunday, and while she’s not doing back flips or anything, she’s still herself.
There is something I was going to discuss this week on-air, and I think it still needs to be said. On this show, we endorsed Kieth Ellison for DNC Chair. We think he’s the best person for the job, and the ideal person to bring the Democratic Party together right now.
He is now facing the same smear campaign today which he faced when he ran for office in 2006. All of it circles around his religion. Ellison is a Muslim. As a result, all sorts of nonsense has been thrown his way. He’s been accused of having ties to the Nation of Islam, and Louis Farrakhan. He is being accused of being a dangerous radical, as well.
This is all complete nonsense. As I’ve said before, I’ve met Kieth Ellison on a number of occasions. He’s one of the best democrats we have. The fact that they are using his religion to attack him is par for the course in 2016. They did the same thing when he was running for office a decade ago. Then, they threw a fit over whether he’d be required to take his oath of office on the bible, even though, as a Muslim, there’s another holy scripture more appropriate for him to use.
If we’re taking oaths seriously, shouldn’t a religious person lay their hand on a religious text that actually matters to them? Shouldn’t they use something they actually believe in? To that end, Kieth Ellison took his oath of office on not just any Quran, but on Thomas Jefferson’s personal copy of the Quran.
American Muslims are Americans. Period.
Fingers and paws crossed, and we’ll see you folks in two weeks.
–Will
This week’s radio broadcast is episode 40, with Frances Coppola, which can be heard in full here.