Yes, that really happened

by Brian Leubitz

You knew at some point that Tim Donnelly would break out of his standard issue right-wing rhetoric to really reach for some crazy stuff. Something that would really grab attention and force Republicans to redouble their efforts to somehow make sure that he isn’t the GOP standard bearer in November. Sure, polls have him up big over former TARP administrator Neel Kashkari, but that doesn’t wipe away years of crazy. After all Donnelly is that guy →

But linking Neel Kashkari to Shariah law, can’t say that I saw that one coming. But, in a facebook post still available today, Donnelly links to a bizarre and factually ridiculous commentary in the Washington Times and posted the following comment:

Neel Kashkari supported the United States submitting to the Islamic, Shariah banking code in 2008 when he ran TARP.

Shariah is “the seditious religio-political-legal code authoritative Islam seeks to impose worldwide under a global theocracy.”

This revelation is spreading fast, as people like Anita Gunn refer to Mr. Kashkari’s support of Shariah an “October Surprise”.

Now, I don’t normally go around defending Republicans who are campaigning on shutting down high speed rail, but I think this is worth a mention. First of all, it is racist on its face. If Neel Kashkari was white, would he face this ridiculous accusation? His family comes from a tradition of Hinduism, which turns out is not a tradition that is generally friendly to Shariah, but I suppose that knowledge would require a bit of reading. This is about ignorance.

The Washington Times article itself is a joke. Kashkari and Treasury officials were actually supporting the idea of connecting the Shariah-approved financial system into the larger global finance system, not making everything submit to Shariah law. It turns out that wouldn’t really work well for our finance system anyway, as Islamic banking forbids the practice of receiving interest. That’s kind of the point of Wall St., so I don’t think we’ll all be converting to Islamic Banking anytime soon.

A tip of the hat to Josh Richman for pointing to the LA Times article where Donnelly doubled down on this crazy:

Donnelly stood by his remarks late Monday.

“Given the recent stories and protests about the outrage of the discriminatory nature of Sharia law, we’re horrified that Kashkari would support Sharia anything,” he said.(LA Times)

Ladies and gentlemen, this is your leading GOP gubernatorial candidate, Tim Donnelly.