Rep. Peter King (R-Long Island), who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, just started his controversial hearings on "Muslim radicalization" today. King promised to run a fair hearing, but he's also not afraid to play the sympathy card: King confirmed to Politico that he's under 24-hour police protection from the NYPD and Nassau County Police Department because of overseas threats.

Additionally, Capitol Police will be at the hearing. King explained, "We have to be ready [for protesters]. Obviously protesters will be removed and we’ll continue with the hearing." In a radio interview, King referenced the NY Times article noting his support of the IRA, which has been involved in terrorist activity, "All kidding aside, it’s hard to figure out - whether the attacks are coming from Kim Kardashian or The New York Times - it seems to be just a hysterical type attack that I’m out to demonize Muslims, that some are saying I want to set up internment camps, that it’s a religious war."

You can watch a live video of the hearing here; the Washington Post is liveblogging the hearings and offers this from King's opening remarks:

"Let me make it clear today that I remain convinced that these hearings must go forward, and they will," King said. "To back down would be a craven surrender to political correctness and an abdication of what I believe to be the main responsibility of this committee-- to protect America from a terrorist attack."

He went on:

"This Committee cannot live in denial which is what some would have us do when they suggest that this hearing dilute its focus by investigating threats unrelated to Al Qaeda. The Department of Homeland Security and this committee were formed in response to the al Qaeda attacks of 9/11. There is no equivalency of threat between al Qaeda and neo-Nazis, environmental extremists or other isolated madmen. Only al Qaeda and its Islamist affiliates in this country are part of an international threat to our nation. Indeed by the Justice Department's own record not one terror related case in the last two years involved neo-Nazis, environmental extremists, militias or anti-war groups."
The NY Post has an editorial mocking the Times' King-IRA feature, "As if it were remotely relevant to the subject of King's hearing -- the distressing regularity with which home-grown Islamists are revealed to be plotting acts of domestic terror. And as if anyone ever declined to walk through Times Square for fear of being blown up by a rabid Irishman."