Article: When politicians support terrorism: at least a dozen current senators and representatives have long records of backing terrorist groups, but their critics remain silent out of a fear of being labeled racist. (The nation: radical politics).(United States)

When he was governor of Pennsylvania, Tom Ridge signed the execution warrant for Muslim militant Mumia Abu-Jamal, whom a jury convicted of murdering Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner in 1981. Mumia had shot the 25-year-old policeman once in the back and point-blank in the face. A handful of congressmen, as part of a yearslong campaign to "Free Mumia" assailed Ridge.

Those same congressmen likely will give Ridge an even harder time in his new post as secretary of homeland security. The most senior of them, Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), has been on the Mumia campaign since the start, signing letters, addressing rallies and pressuring the previous president ...

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