Billy Long supports hearing on radicalization of Muslims

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports Seventh District Congressman Billy Long, the only Missouri representative serving on a committee examining the radicalization of Muslims is 100 percent in favor of the hearings:

"I hope that they make people more vigilant in the Muslim community, just as in all communities," said Long, a first-term Republican from Springfield.


Long said he was especially moved by the testimony a Tennessee man who described how his son grew distant from the family and eventually traveled to Yemen.

After returning from the Arab peninsula, the son, Carlos Bledsoe, opened fire on a military recuriting station in Arkansas, killing a U.S. soldier.

"Americans are sitting around doing nothing about radical extremists as if Carlos's story (isn't) true," Melvin Bledsoe said. "This is the big elephant in the room."

Long observed that Carlos Bledsoe had been "just a normal all-American kid...It was just heart-wrenching."