With the House of Representatives coming under Republican control in the new Congress, many Americans are wondering how the new leadership will behave. A number of major Republicans have come out against any sort of compromise with Democrats in Congress, like Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI), the ranking member of the House Ways and Means Committee, who has vowed to block middle class tax cuts if the tax cuts for the richest Americans aren’t extended as well.

GOP Rep.-elect Richard Hanna (NY) separated himself from hardliners in his party like Camp yesterday during an interview with a State of Politics reporter. The interviewer asked Hanna, “There’s a lot of people in your party that are already talking about taking a hard line and not compromising with the president. What do you think?” Hanna responded by saying that he doesn’t “feel that way. And I think that ultimately if the Republican Party takes that kind of posture, then they will be punished in two years, becaues people are sick of partisanship“:

INTERVIEWER: There’s a lot of people in your party that are already talking about taking a hard line and not compromising with the president. What do you think? Is it too early, are you going to get your feet wet and then decide, or are you going to take a hard line, are there certain things you won’t compromise on?

HANNA: I’m sure there are, but I’m sure there’s many things I’m sure we’ll be able to work together with. I don’t feel that way. And I think that ultimately if the Republican Party takes that kind of posture, then they will be punished in two years, because people are sick of partisanship. And I think if you live in New York you have a particularly good view of the product it makes over time. That’s not my goal, my goal is to find solutions and work for them.

Watch it:

While Hanna also came out against further continuing unemployment benefits that are set to expire at the end of this month, he came out against a full repeal of the recently passed health care law. He said that what the country wants is a “good progressive health care reform bill that does what we ultimately wanted it do, which is provide health care to people at a reasonable cost,” and that there are aspects of the law that he likes. He said that the law may be repealed but that it’s “ultimately up to both parties to come up with something that the public finds affordable and palatable in a lot more ways.”

With America caught up in an Islamophobic whirlwind, anything remotely tied to the Islamic faith sets off paranoid hysterics over an impending Muslim takeover. Rather than responsibly debunk these delusions, the Fox News network has contributed to the hysteria by promoting extremely radical guests, polarizing rhetoric, bigoted punditry, and racial profiling. Last week, FoxNews.com unveiled a new “investigation” targeting Muslim staffers on Capitol Hill. According to the report, the Congressional Muslim Staff Association’s (CMSA) have sought to bring the “Who’s Who” of jihadist sympathizers to its weekly Friday Jummah prayer meetings “for more than a decade.”

Right on cue, the right-wing American Center for Law and Justice demanded that the Justice Department to investigate and “take immediate action to halt” the congressional prayer sessions. Channeling its founder and indefatigable anti-Muslim Rev. Pat Robertson, the ACLJ said the “absurdity” of inviting “the very terrorists who want to destroy America” to Capitol Hill “raises a host of significant questions-including concerns about national security” and, based on Fox’s “report,” warrants a “thorough investigation”:

The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) is calling on the U.S. Department of Justice to launch an investigation concerning reports that Islamic terrorists have appeared before a Congressionally sponsored Muslim group that meets at the U.S. Capitol. The investigative report by Fox News reveals that a number of well-known terrorists-including U.S. born Anwar al-Awlaki, the Al Qaeda cleric believed to be hiding in Yemen and the lone American on the U.S. government’s capture or kill list-have appeared at what’s been described as weekly ‘prayer’ sessions on Capitol Hill.

“It is unbelievable that that the very terrorists who want to destroy America are permitted to meet in a Congressionally-sanctioned setting on Capitol Hill,” said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the ACLJ. “This raises a host of significant questions-including concerns about national security. We’re demanding that the Department of Justice conduct an investigation and take immediate action to halt to what appears to be a pattern of inviting Islamic extremists with ties to terrorism to participate in these events. The absurdity is clear: the U.S. government disinvites Franklin Graham to a prayer service at the Pentagon, while Islamic terrorists take part in Capitol Hill events. A thorough investigation is warranted.”

In ginning up the hysteria over terrorist infiltration, Fox and the ACLJ missed one small fact – the Friday prayers have nothing to do with the CMSA. As Religion Dispatches’ Sarah Posner explains, the prayers are held by individual staffers “under the auspices of the House chaplain; they are not an official function of the CMSA.” In fact, the CMSA, which does not receive funding or support from the government, “didn’t exist” when Fox says the people with terrorist ties supposedly went to the prayer sessions. The report, says Posner, is less fact and more “red meat” for the “conservative culture that feeds on paranoia.”

Just ask the Muslim Republicans who are involved. Suhail Kahn, a conservative Republican who served as a political appointee in the Bush administration and who currently serves on the American Conservative Union board, was once a Republican hill staffer. According to Khan, the services are open to the public and are “very pro-American, and tend to be about public service, and the honor of public service.” In fact, the member who granted Khan’s room request for a small number of Muslim staffers to pray was then-Speaker and current Islamophobe Newt Gingrich. If CMSA truly posed some national security issue, Gingrich or Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) — who’s staffer is CMSA’s vice-president — would avoid any semblance of support.

But, as Khan points out, unfounded “guilt-by-association” claims like this are nothing more than “good old fashioned bigotry.” “Ninety-nine point nine percent of honest reporters” would “know a smear when they see it” and “toss it into the garbage can,” he said. Kudos to Fox News for making that 0.1 percent.

Earlier this week, Rep.-elect Andy Harris (R-MD), who ran on a platform of repealing the recently-passed health care law, ironically demanded access to his taxpayer-subsidized congressional health care plan upon arriving in Washington. Yesterday, Rep. Joe Crowley (D-NY) began circulating a letter among his Democratic colleagues calling on Harris and other members of Congress who want to repeal the new health care law to forego their own government health care plans. In a letter to House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Crowley writes, “If your conference wants to deny millions of Americans affordable health care, your members should walk that walk“:

“If your conference wants to deny millions of Americans affordable health care, your members should walk that walk,” Crowley writes in a letter to House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

“You cannot enroll in the very kind of coverage that you want for yourselves, and then turn around and deny it to Americans who don’t happen to be Members of Congress. We also want to note that in 2011, the Federal government will pay $10,503.48 of the premiums for each member of Congress with a family policy under the commonly selected Blue Cross standard plan.”

Conservative members of Congress receiving taxpayer-subsidized health care benefits while opposing the same benefits for the general public is nothing new. During the height of the health care debate, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) identified 55 Republicans who were enrolled in Medicare, the country’s single-payer universal health care system for the elderly. Not one of those Republicans supported offering such a plan to everyday Americans.

Yet at least one Republican has taken up Crowley’s challenge. Rep.-elect Bobby Shilling (R-IL) told ABC’s Top Line today that he will not be taking part in the congressional health care plan, nor will he take part in many other benefits members of Congress receive, like the congressional pension plan. “Congress shouldn’t have anything better than the American people,” he said. Watch it: