Breaking Point: Media Finally Reporting on Violence Tied to Right Wing Extremism

In April of Barack Obama’s first year in office, right wing America had a collective meltdown when the Department of Homeland Security dared to write a report (pdf) on right wing extremism and the domestic terrorists that could be tied to the movement. Michelle Malkin went into a full mouth froth, declaring that the report was an Obama DHS hit job on conservatives. ABC was quick to join in, documenting more of the responses of “conservatives”. Sadly, Obama and the DHS backed down meekly and the concept was quickly scrubbed from public debate.

But attacks carried out by the very types of right wing radicals described in the report have continued. The toll from these attacks appears to have gotten high enough that the media finally has found its voice again and is willing to document the carnage while connecting the dots. After the deadly shootings at a Jewish center in the Kansas City area in April of this year, Peter Bergen and David Sterman penned an op-ed piece carried by CNN. They dared title the piece “U.S. right wing extremists more deadly than jihadists” and produced documentation to back up their damning headline:

In fact, since 9/11 extremists affiliated with a variety of far-right wing ideologies, including white supremacists, anti-abortion extremists and anti-government militants, have killed more people in the United States than have extremists motivated by al Qaeda’s ideology. According to a count by the New America Foundation, right wing extremists have killed 34 people in the United States for political reasons since 9/11. (The total includes the latest shootings in Kansas, which are being classified as a hate crime).

By contrast, terrorists motivated by al Qaeda’s ideology have killed 21 people in the United States since 9/11.

With Sunday’s killing of two policemen and a “good guy with a gun” in Las Vegas by another pair of right wing extremists, Paul Waldman was able to take to the blog pages of the Washington Post to tie these violent attacks to the venom-filled rhetoric of the right:

But what I am saying is this: there are some particular features of conservative political rhetoric today that help create an atmosphere in which violence and terrorism can germinate.

The most obvious component is the fetishization of firearms and the constant warnings that government will soon be coming to take your guns. But that’s only part of it. Just as meaningful is the conspiracy theorizing that became utterly mainstream once Barack Obama took office. If you tuned into one of many national television and radio programs on the right, you heard over and over that Obama was imposing a totalitarian state upon us. You might hear that FEMA was building secret concentration camps (Glenn Beck, the propagator of that theory, later recanted it, though he has a long history of violent rhetoric), or that Obama is seeding the government with agents of the Muslim Brotherhood. You grandfather probably got an email offering proof that Obama is literally the antichrist.

Writing over at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Charles Blair brings us the sobering math on the recent growth of these radical groups:

For almost 15 years after the Oklahoma City bombing, far-right extremism remained a relative constant; now it has risen again in group numbers, violence, and latent explosiveness. To gain greater clarity on this alarming trajectory, I recently spoke with Mark Potok, an expert in domestic extremism and director of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Addressing the numerical ebb and flow with far-right “hate groups” (that is, US white supremacist and other groups whose beliefs or practices attack or malign an entire class of people), Potok said, “What we’ve been seeing is a long slow steady rise since 2000—it has gone from 602 groups that year to 1,007 groups in 2012.” The rise was connected to the election of an African-American president and accompanying conspiracy theories, Potok explained; a severe economic recession and fears related to immigration also were factors.

This expansion of hate groups has been paralleled by growth in the number of “patriot groups” (defined as US militias and other strongly anti-government related groups that are not primarily white supremacist or racist in orientation). The Southern Poverty Law Center’s count of such groups initially peaked in the mid-1990s, at 858. A steep decline ensued, especially after the so-called Y2K bug—the potential mass demise of computers made before the year 2000—failed to bring about societal chaos, rapture, or a millenarian apocalypse. In 2001, the movement hit its nadir with 150 groups and remained low throughout both of President George W. Bush’s terms.

But in 2009, Potok said, “[t]he patriot group numbers began skyrocketing. By 2011 there were 1,274, and in 2012 the numbers peaked at 1,360.”

The Las Vegas killers were fans of a particularly virulent mix of these hate messages. From the SPLC:

In the days and weeks before the attack, Miller posted a series of comments on his Facebook page indicating that, in order to restore “freedom” to the United States, the “best men” would strike for “a free and just world with our blood, sweat and tears as pavement,” he said on June 2. “There is no greater cause to die for than liberty,” he wrote on May 2. “I will willingly die for liberty.” On March 25, he wrote: “I stand firm in my convictions and stand prepared to die for them.  … Come for me, free me from your slavery. Give me the death a hero deserves.”

/snip/

On May 25, 2014, Miller also said on his page that he had been present at the mid-April standoff, some 60 miles outside Las Vegas, between rancher Cliven Bundy and federal agents trying to seize his cattle for nonpayment of grazing fees. Bundy, who was backed by hundreds of armed militiamen, ultimately won that battle, as law enforcement officers decided to stand down rather than risk a bloodbath after Bundy’s supporters pointed their weapons at a crowd of federal agents. On April 9, shortly before traveling to the Bundy ranch, Jerad Miller wrote that the standoff was “the next Waco,” a reference to a deadly 1993 standoff in Texas.

/snip/

But the bulk of his page made it clear that he saw himself very much as part of the Patriot, or militia, movement. His profile picture shows two knives and the word “PATRIOT,” using a stars and stripes motif. He wrote a great deal about the Second Amendment, calling it a “Freedom Thing.” He criticized domestic spying. He cited Patriot gun rights activist Adam Kokesh. He “liked” Three Percenter Nation, a Patriot group headed by a former Alabama militiaman;Operation “American Spring,” a failed recent Patriot attempt to mount a huge protest in Washington, D.C.; and the Alliance Defending Freedom, a radical anti-LGBT Christian organization. He also cited a series of smaller gun rights groups approvingly.

Returning to Waldman’s piece, there is this chilling conclusion:

And I promise you, these murders in Nevada will not be the last. It may be going too far to say that conservative politicians and media figures whose rhetoric has fed the deranged fantasies of terrorists and killers have blood on their hands. But they shouldn’t have a clear conscience, either.

Although it comes too late for many lives that have already been lost, we see at the end of the SPLC piece that Eric Holder is stepping in to cover the void created when DHS backed down from their work on domestic terrorists:

The killing in Las Vegas came just five days after U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced that he was reviving a special unit devoted to monitoring domestic terrorism that fell dormant in the aftermath of the 2001 Al Qaeda attacks. Holder pointed out, presciently, that in addition to Islamist terror the nation also faced the threat of “individuals within our own borders who may be motivated by a variety of causes from anti-government animus to racial prejudice.”

Don’t expect the resources to be dedicated to this effort to come anywhere close to the billions of dollars we spend chasing jihadists, but at least both the Department of Justice and the media finally admit that the problem of right wing terrorism is real and growing.

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66 replies
    • Jim White says:

      Heh. I knew you’d show up. Although you share some views with otherwise progressive folks, your gun insanity and belief that taking up arms against the government is needed make you fit with these terrorists far more than us.
      .
      And that will be my only response to you today. Beware, though. Advocating violence does constitute grounds for banning.

      • wallace says:

        quote”Although you share some views with otherwise progressive folks, your gun insanity and belief that taking up arms against the government is needed make you fit with these terrorists far more than us.”quote

        Shades of more living proof . First off, you are calling 300 MILLION gun owners insane, when 99.9% of them are law abiding citizens. Second, your assessment that I “believe that taking up arms against the government is needed” proves you truly are an idiot of biblical proportions. I have NEVER advocated “taking up arms against the government”. All I’ve advocated is MY RIGHT by virtue of the 2nd Amendment to “keep and bear arms”. So, if you want to call someone insane..then call the FRAMERS insane.

        quote”And that will be my only response to you today.” unquote Fair enough. Me too.

        quote”Beware, though. Advocating violence does constitute grounds for banning.”unquote

        Oh fucking spare me. I’ve NEVER advocated violence. On the other hand, you advocate for a USG MONOPOLY ON VIOLENCE. All I’ve advocated for is….SELF DEFENCE. Now fuck off.

      • wallace says:

        quote”Although you share some views with otherwise progressive folks, your gun insanity and belief that taking up arms against the government is needed make you fit with these terrorists far more than us.”quote

        Shades of more living proof . First off, you are calling 300 MILLION gun owners insane, when 99.9% of them are law abiding citizens. Second, your assessment that I “believe that taking up arms against the government is needed” proves you truly are an idiot of biblical proportions. I have NEVER advocated “taking up arms against the government”. All I’ve advocated is MY RIGHT by virtue of the 2nd Amendment to “keep and bear arms”. So, if you want to call someone insane..then call the FRAMERS insane.

        quote”And that will be my only response to you today.” unquote Fair enough. Me too.

        quote”Beware, though. Advocating violence does constitute grounds for banning.”unquote

        Oh fucking spare me. I’ve NEVER advocated violence. On the other hand, you advocate for a USG MONOPOLY ON VIOLENCE. All I’ve advocated for is….SELF DEFENSE. Now fuck off.

          • wallace says:

            quote”You’ve been runnign your mouth about guns and rebellion for weeks.”unquote

            So? Since when don’t I have a right to express my thoughts about the 2nd Amendment. Vs you Mr. Arnold. And btw,, I’m sure the patriots at Lexington and Concord would have shot you.

    • orionATL says:

      thanks, wallace, for demonstrating once again with your own words what an incompetent citizen your gun-rights damaged brain makes you.

      there are few, if any, private organizations in the country that have a more distinguished and admirable history of fighting racial and religious bigotry than the southern poverty law center.

      best to start running scared, wallace, your gun-rights groups have finally over-reached in this country.

      get your guns and ammo and camo and “tactical toys” and crackers and canned sardines and head gor that secret cave in the hills.

      p.s. don’t forget batteries

    • drywit says:

      Just cool your jets, little man. The harder you gun nuts try to look tough, the more ridiculous you appear to the sane world. Also, you have no idea where this is leading…your little popguns won’t even be a factor.

  1. wallace says:

    quote” Tagged Cliven Bundy, domestic terror, hate groups, militias, patriot movement, “unquote

    You’re an idiot.

  2. bloopie2 says:

    So, what then is the definition of “terrorism” that is being used in this article, by the author and by others? I thought terrorism was “trying to terrorize others”, i.e., to intimidate or coerce somebody with violence or the threat of violence, or to make somebody very fearful, to fill somebody with feelings of intense fear over a period of time. But the Las Vegas motives seem to be “a free and just world”, “liberty,” “free me from your slavery”, by killing policemen who were seen as agents of oppression. Who were the killers trying to scare? Were they trying to scare the government into going away? That sounds really dumb. What am I missing here?

    • Jim White says:

      Yes, the definitions many use vary, but broadly speaking, the distinction between terrorist and patriot/revolutionary/freedom fighter mainly depends on whether you are “with us or against us”. The forces fighting Assad are “rebels” in the Western press and “terrorists” in the Iranian press. And the biggest example of all is bin Laden himself, who went from “Freedom Fighter” when Dana Rohrabacher took up arms alongside similar groups in Afghanistan against the Soviets to being the most notorious terrorist of all when he attacked us on 9/11.

      Personally, I see anyone who takes part in trying to inflict mass casualties as a political statement as a terrorist.

  3. Don Bacon says:

    Sorry, Jim but these people are not “right-wing,” people who favor social hierarchy or social inequality.
    .
    These are people who don’t like the government for various reasons which puts them in the same general category as some bloggers who continually criticize, however in their cases they wrongfully employ violence (like the government does) rather than keyboard taps .
    .
    In fact most Americans, according to polls, believe the country is going in the wrong direction. Approval of Congress is down around five percent. Sixty-to percent (inflated) voted in the last presidential, twenty percent locally here in the recent primaries. What they call democracy is not working. Many US social indicators are worse than all other developed countries, police and federal agent control is becoming oppressive to many, especially minorities — the list goes on and some people are action-oriented.

  4. Don Bacon says:

    Terrorism: The unlawful use of violence or threat of violence to instill fear and coerce governments or societies. Terrorism is often motivated by religious, political, or other ideological beliefs and committed in the pursuit of goals that are usually political. See also antiterrorism; combating terrorism; counterterrorism; force protection condition. — DOD Dictionary

    • bloopie2 says:

      So do you think that these two were terrorists? If so, what were they trying to achieve, other than their own deaths?

  5. Don Bacon says:

    The US tree has revolutionary roots.
    “… whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

  6. shuck says:

    SPLC had done some outrageously idiotic things, but has done far more good. True of any organization, for the most part.

    Quite the opposite is true of the Tea Party, and much of libertarianism in general. Too much over-focused and extrordinarily narrow views for the most part, combined with a complete lack of scholarship. Ayn Rand was mentally deranged, yet her appeal seems to be quite succesful to appealing of the basest of motivations, that is, hoarding: the freedom to be so greedy as to destroy both the commons and thusly society in general. Authentic liberty requires equal measure of personal responsibility and commitment to maintaining the commons, and all that which preserves it for all of society depends on it. You can criticize waste and inefficiency, but the forum for that is the electoral process, stop elevating pinheads to Congress whom constantly threaten to shoot the nose of their own Congressional face and whom seem to think economically promulgating sick, poorly educated and malnourished children is “liberty.” Talking violent revolution only bears witness to personal ignorance, futility, and further marginalizes your political position. That’s just not very bright, and certainly not a strategy. It also may indicate you don’t really know what you want, let alone how to get it really, which casts doubt on your soundness…

    • Dave S says:

      I kind of agree with the point of the article, however I disagree with using the SPLC for any sort of guide. These people are the polar opposite end of the spectrum, these so called “freedom fighters” etc, are typically young, Alex Jones listeners who get the impression the Stasi is coming for them. The same can be said for the lunatic socialist left that would have us all be slaves to government, which is a disgusting trait that is growing as well. People in the libertarian movement, Ron Paul, Tom Woods, Doug Casey, Mises are scholarly reasoned individuals that make the case & I tend to agree that coercion or force is immoral. People bloviating about the “commons”, “social justice” & the like only give a rats ass about it in the abstract. How many “socialists” or “lefties” do you know who volunteer huge portions of their salaries willingly to government? I know of 0. Lumping in a few nut cases of which there are poeple of all so called political ideologies with Libertarians is abhorrent. Glen Beck, Alex Jones & the like do not speak for 99% of Libertarians, as they are simply fear capitalists & anyone with a brain can see. The same goes with the rise of the lunatic left, this 99% stuff the rise of socialism in France, soak the rich all this stuff is distracting from the point. There is a steady move toward government oppression in the west. Higher taxes, surveillance, war, drones, assassination, indefinite detention. Some poeple are rightly concerned about these things, but don’t lump freedom lovers in general in with the same cloth as a couple lunatics, it’s crass in my opinion & I think the article & people who hold this view can do better.

      • shuck says:

        Well, your own credibility went down the chute when you revealed yourself a tea-paultard. Libertarianism isn’t really a movement, anymore than a fecal mass is a candy cane.

        It’s at best a nebulous position in the spectrum.

      • fritter says:

        @Dave S
        “The same goes with the rise of the lunatic left, this 99% stuff the rise of socialism in France, soak the rich all this stuff is distracting from the point.”

        I agree with your overall point but you seem to be falling into the same trap as those you are criticizing. Hopefully, you’ll use this to reconsider “the lefts” side of the coin. Maybe there isn’t a massive “lunatic left” out there. Maybe its a decent group of people tarred with an unwarranted image.

        In any case you should consider that when you say oppression you include higher taxes. Taxes are at historically low levels. Even if they weren’t would you really consider them as dire or in the same category as assignations and indefinite detentions?

        Do you think OWS protesters have any less love of freedom? I’d think someone willing to be beat, maced, and humiliated to express an idea in a nonviolent manner the greatest of “freedom lovers.”

        • Dave S says:

          Point taken with regard to the lunatic left, it seems to me however that there’s growing tension & hostility between political ideologies. As I said lumping a couple nutcases in with freedom lovers is just wrong. I just think it’s necessary to point out peoples glaring misconceptions about the freedom movement, the right to be left alone & not dictated to by some so called moral majority. With regard to taxes, historically low or not, taxation is theft, how much of someone’s income do believe it is moral to approptaite for your beliefs? All of it is oppressive, granted not to the same degree, as far as OWS, putting yourself in that position, accomplishing nothing is well, their personal choices. Is it admirable to take a stand against perceived injustice sure, but understanding how those injustices happen & simply railing against the 1% are quite different. My whole point, it just irks me to see libertarians called extreme, when we simply want to be left alone, all that lumping people together is distracting. Which you helped make a little clearer for my own lumping given my left comment. So thanks for the response, I’ll try to be a tad more gracious in my comments in the future regarding the group think

          • fritter says:

            ” My whole point, it just irks me to see libertarians called extreme, when we simply want to be left alone, all that lumping people together is distracting. ”

            The last thing that anyone who benefits from the current system wants is for a large group of people to realize that there are a set of common core values that are vital to them all. Those values are what you and I would say were “freedom”, and were embodied in the Constitution. Today we consider the constitution the rights of the people, but it was originally the limited rights of government (preaching to choir i know). Its just as important for died in the wool socialists as libertarians. I’m a socialist (of sorts) which just means have a particular preference for the disposition of capital. Over 90% of the ills we face daily we would find common ground on I’m confident. War, privacy, but maybe not taxes or some regulations, but think of the world we would live in if we could just get together on a few of those big issues.. The things we would agree one would take a lot of power and money out of the hands of a few though. That’s why Libertarians get lumped into “the lunatic fringe” as often as not. Tribalism keeps us divided. Hence the consternation from the “professional left” when some left groups (like FDL) partnered with Libertarians to oppose legislation that would harm us all.

            Don’t take it personally, there are a lot of vested interests that need Libertarians to be seen in a certain way by people like the author and this site. You can’t expect people fed propaganda since birth to change everything overnight. All you can do is try to gradually find common ground.

  7. TarheelDem says:

    The dirty little secret of the silence surrounding these groups is the ideological alliance of these groups and their animosities with the rank-and-file members of many police forces and elected police officials and sheriffs. And these guys tend to look the other way while oppressing even mildly liberal non-violent protests. (And this phenomenon is not new in most parts of the country.)

    Right-wing domestic violence is perceived by the PTB as something that they can control through propaganda and media. After all, it was right-wing domestic violence led by former slaveowners but executed by the same sorts of ideological zealots who are carrying out these attack who restored “home rule” to the South. And the PTB then and after controlled the pogroms of social control pretty well then and afterwards. The descendants of these same nightriders are some of the more influential radio shock jocks.

    • shuck says:

      @ TarheelDem:

      Are you aware of the revolt in the Seattle Police Department? It seems they want to have the “liberty” to kill more Indians or whomever they don’t like in the street (like a dog) as per the murder of the Indian woodcarver John T. Williams two years ago. So the SPD recently filed a Federal Lawsuit claiming their civil rights are impinged over the right to Kill after the DOJ had to come in to clean them up. It speaks directly to what you are talking about. But Seattle is lucky to have a community that pushes back, and the AUSA Jennifer Durkan is particularly exemplary here, and she is the type whom can and does restore faith in the generally problematic DOJ. That said, I can’t even begin to imagine what BMAZ sees where he’s at.

    • fritter says:

      @TarheelDem
      Unfortunately, “the left”, seems happy about the situation if only the police are brutalizing rednecks as much as the college kids. All of a sudden, jack booted thugs become Andie Griffith lawmen so as long as they are kicking the sculls of the right people.
      I expect to see condemnation of Marcy’s SIC reporting any moment now. We can’t have people exposing the Obama DOJ’s few tools of fighting right wing terror right here in our own country. I bet half the “lefty” commenter s here and elsewhere would be fine with drones flying over the Red states, bringing justice to “the militants”.

      My Partisan comrades never cease to amaze me.

  8. Don Bacon says:

    The Pentagon doesn’t recognize its own definition of terrorism when it labels assassination programs against anti-US locals as counter-terrorism, as a part of the war on terror, etc.
    .
    So the word terrorism has lost all meaning and has become a political word to be used whenever it’s convenient, in a political sense. Current US politics are anti-Muslim, so it’s usually applied to them.

  9. wallace says:

    quote”So do you think that these two were terrorists?”unquote

    No, I think they were 2 deranged morons who were radicalized by opposite ideologies. After all, how can one advocate for liberty and justice and at the same time, advocate for white supremacy, notwithstanding masquerading as characters out of a comic book. In the end, they were idiots who were no different than any other murderer.
    My .02

  10. bmaz1 says:

    Another school shooting today. This has got to stop.

    Take the guns. Take all the guns. The only hunting should be of people that won’t give up their fucking guns.

    And hi there Wallace, who used to be Chronicle, how ya doing? Pick a screen name and stick with it. We don’t sanction rotating identities here.

  11. Don Bacon says:

    It ain’t rocket science: A terrorist commits a violent act in intended to cause a feeling of terror to one degree or another in many people.
    .
    So the test is: Did this action cause a lot of people to have strong feelings of fear? Did it terrify them? Perhaps even change their behavior (e.g. going to pizza parlors)?

    • bmaz1 says:

      To me at least, this is heinous conduct, but still a crime as opposed to terrorism. The general definition of terrorism in the US is provided by 18 USC 2331, and I would argue this, the Isla Vista shootings, Newton etc. simply do not truly meet the criteria. I also think it is very dangerous to expand the definition of “terrorism” beyond anything but the clearest cut of incidences. Designating conduct as terrorism, no matter how egregious and repugnant it is, broadens geometrically the invasiveness that the government can exercise in combatting it. Much of what we do here is talk about oppressive and invasive invasion of privacy, and militarization of traditional police response. That has occurred largely in response to fears and designation of “terrorism”. I’d argue we should actually pare that back, not be expanding it.

      • bsbafflesbrains says:

        Agree, we shouldn’t let crazy people have guns and then call them terrorists. They are crazy people with guns.

      • Don Bacon says:

        This incident meets the criteria of 18 USC 2331, a violent act in intended to cause a feeling of terror to one degree or another in many people. It is not the act alone but also the intention.
        .
        The test is: Did this action cause a lot of people to have strong feelings of fear? Did it terrify them? Perhaps even change their behavior (e.g. going to pizza parlors)?
        .
        Also a political objective: “This is the start of a revolution”
        .
        18 U.S. Code 2331 Terrorism
        (A) involve violent acts or acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State, or that would be a criminal violation if committed within the jurisdiction of the United States or of any State;
        (B) appear to be intended—
        (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;
        (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or
        (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping;

    • wallace says:

      quote”A terrorist commits a violent act in intended to cause a feeling of terror to one degree or another in many people.”unquote

      I rest my case @26

      • bsbafflesbrains says:

        Resting your case with solving school shootings with a single monitored entrance is interesting.

  12. bsbafflesbrains says:

    The point I got from this post is that finally the propaganda arm of the uber wealthy is allowing or being forced to tell the truth about how UNreasonable and illogical our current gun laws are. Most US citizens are for reasonable gun regulations but the NRA and the big money interests have opposed all attempts. If the M$M were to report facts and truly let the people decide we would already have reasonable laws to prevent mentally ill and disturbed people from acquiring assault weapons and multiple high capacity pistols and dozens of ammo clips.

  13. wallace says:

    quote”Another school shooting today. This has got to stop. “unquote

    Yes, I agree. Totally. So why don’t schools have ONE monitored entrance? You’d think the adults at these schools don’t have a fucking clue.

    quote”Take the guns. Take all the guns. The only hunting should be of people that won’t give up their fucking guns.” unquote… Right. .. by using… a gun. Hahhahahahahaha. You are hilarious. King George would have given you a medal.

    quote”And hi there Wallace, who used to be Chronicle, how ya doing? Pick a screen name and stick with it. We don’t sanction rotating identities here.”unquote..

    Hi bmaz. Then WHY don’t you fix your goddamn software..hmmmm? Then I wouldn’t have to do what MARCI TOLD ME TO DO. comprende?

    • bmaz1 says:

      Comprende this pal, keep being a jackass to hosts and commenters here and your ass will be gone permanently.

      “Comprende”?

      By the way, her name is Marcy, not Marci, you blowhard.

      Also, then why did you change from “BloodyPitchfork” to Chronicle? You claim we ordered you to do all of those?

      • wallace says:

        quote”Comprende this pal, keep being a jackass to hosts and commenters here and your ass will be gone permanently.”quote

        I only spit back what’s directed at me, shithead. I contribute a point of view, and when I get attacked, I’m going to say something. But if you want to ban me, it’s your site. However, I’m not going to bite my tongue for NO BODY. I’m normally civil. But when people start calling me names, or implying I’m insane etc, I’m gonna call a prick a prick. COMPRENDE?

        quote”Also, then why did you change from “BloodyPitchfork” to Chronicle? You claim we ordered you to do all of those?”unquote

        Ask MARCI. I emailed her a dozen times clear back then. She told me to try a different name/email addy. It worked…after a month of trying to post. And let me clue you to what she said, since you don’t have a clue. SHE told me “I” wasn’t the only one. Got it…PAL?

  14. wallace says:

    quote” If the M$M were to report facts and truly let the people decide we would already have reasonable laws to prevent mentally ill and disturbed people from acquiring assault weapons and multiple high capacity pistols and dozens of ammo clips.”unquote

    Indeed. The mentally ill and disturbed people from acquiring assault weapons and multiple high capacity pistols and dozens of ammo clips. I agree. And flash bombs. Like these psychopaths…

    http://www.policestateusa.com/2014/swat-throws-grenade-in-playpen/

    or these…

    http://www.policestateusa.com/2014/handley-family-raid/

    or these…

    http://www.policestateusa.com/2014/hill-family-museum-outing/

    Terrorists indeed. The only thing missing on their uniforms is a Swastika.

  15. wallace says:

    quote”Breaking Point: Media Finally Reporting on Violence Tied to Right Wing Extremism”unquote

    Yeah, well when are they gonna start reporting on THE VIOLENT STAZI then?

  16. 0ivae says:

    Bear in mind that quite often (perhaps even more often than not) these “right-wing extremists” – particularly those of racist inclinations – are government “informants” (really a euphemism for operatives) and the SPLC has been instrumental in cultivating them for decades.

    Given everything else that is reported here, it should come as no surprise that certain governmental bureaucracies (NSA,FBI, ATF, CIA, etc.) do profile individuals; and armed with such behavioral information, agents within these bureaucracies can manipulate and exploit the actions of these individuals in order to further certain policies, such as gun control or merely to paint the political opposition as “extremist” and particularly as “racist”.

    Do not let your ideological lens blind you from the implications of what your own reporting entails.

    • shuck says:

      @oivae:

      That’s been floating around since the Kennedy assassination at a minimum, talked to death re: MKUltra and all that. People know little of what it is to be genuinely targeted, I can assure you.

  17. pumpkin papers says:

    Jim White is normally the least blinkered and parochial opiner on this soapbox but here he’s misjudging the target of fairly blatant WaPo propaganda. The target of this stirring anti-terror manifesto is not hate groups, it’s ‘conspiracy theory,’ always vilified and increasingly smeared by association with violence.

    Jim let Waldman get away with quite a leap of logic. Evidently you are creating an atmosphere in which violence and terrorism can germinate, if you are concerned about government officials “imposing a totalitarian state upon us.”

    What exactly is the proper term for a state that tortures and extrajudicially kills with impunity, that suspends the rights of trial for protected persons and domestic civilians, that has criminalized the right to seek and obtain information and denies the right to privacy? What do you call a state that tries to repeal jus cogens in domestic legislation? Who in their right mind doesn’t think that’s a totalitarian state?

    I bet Waldman has a list with the names of 205 atmosphere creators – probably more than 205, because it would include everybody with a 70-plus IQ. He doesn’t give a rat’s ass about hate speech (if he did, he would call out illegal US government hate speech and war propaganda.) He’s trying to chill public discussion of US government crime.

  18. liberalrob says:

    The fruit of obsessive, paranoid secrecy is obsessive, paranoid conspiracy theory. QED.

  19. Skilly says:

    Ok, so near as I can tell, Wallace says the solution to school shootings is a single monitored entrance?

    Am I the only one that sees that as a, “target rich environment,” for the isolated, lonely shooters seeking some moment of fame before they kill themselves? That would be a crowd waiting to be fired upon. If you force every person in and out through the bottleneck, you can be assured that someone will see that as an opportunity to do serious damage. As long as the media gives these shooters publicity and the bullets to fill the weapons are so readily available, you can count on seeing more and more of these school shooting every spring.

    • wallace says:

      quote”Ok, so near as I can tell, Wallace says the solution to school shootings is a single monitored entrance?
      Am I the only one that sees that as a, “target rich environment,” for the isolated, lonely shooters seeking some moment of fame before they kill themselves? That would be a crowd waiting to be fired upon. If you force every person in and out through the bottleneck, you can be assured that someone will see that as an opportunity to do serious damage”unquote

      Good point. But here’s something else. These are KIDS. Where are the parents? Moreover, why can’t THEY be prosecuted for CHILD NEGLECT or Complicity to murder? Or something to that effect? Not that that would help the victims. But it WOULD send a message to parents of kids who are getting unstable, collecting weapons and planning.

      As to the guns themself. AIN”T gonna happen. Besides, even if every law abiding citizen turned in their weapons..guess who’s NOT going to hand them over? You got it. CRIMINALS. And then what are you going to do when every criminal in America knows the citizen hasn’t got any guns. Hahahahaha! You wish.

      To put it bluntly..and with all due respect…”it’s the CULTURE stupid!” Violent violent video games, violent movies, violent TV…not to mention CONTINUOUS WARS, a violent military, violent police state..etc etc. These kids LIVE IT and we lived it ever since WW11. AMERICA IS VIOLENT. PERIOD.

  20. wallace says:

    @bmaz..quote “By the way, her name is Marcy, not Marci, you blowhard.”unquote

    I’m sorry. Force of habit. My EX-wife’s name was…MARCY. Now, can we drop the animosity and get back to viewpoints? I will be more cordial. However, ask Marci about Irish tempers. That’s my only excuse.

  21. bmaz1 says:

    This is a free and open forum. We do now, and have always, accepted, adopted and encouraged a full spectrum of viewpoints. What we have never knowingly tolerated is sock puppets, rotating identities and bullshit attacks on hosts and other commenters. We don’t need that. There has not been an example laid down in a long time. Today, “Wallace”, “Chronicle” and/or “BloodyPitchFork”, whatever, they were all the same guy, went a bridge too far.
    .
    Don’t like it? I am your guy to hate, and no one else.
    .
    Enough is enough. We, here at Emptywheel, cherish the input and intelligence of our commenters as much or more than any substantive forum on the internet. But there is a level beyond which bullshit is simply bullshit. Mr. “Wallace/Chronicle/BloodyPitchfork” went well beyond that, and over a long time with many warnings and opportunities to be a decent chap. Enough is enough.
    .
    And buh bye.

     

    • bsbafflesbrains says:

      Appreciate the action and the explanation. This is an important forum and much valued for just what you stated.

    • P J Evans says:

      Thanks for taking care of that particular problem. I was reading less because of that one.

  22. punkin papers says:

    “And none of them would be missed!”

    That list would unquestionably include
    Pre-eminent journalists
    -Russ Baker
    -Scott Horton
    and International law experts
    – Andreas Schueller
    – Baltazar Garzon
    – Denis Halliday
    – Francis Boyle (who’s on the no-fly list for chrissakes)
    – William Pepper

    I don’t doubt that US liberals would be tickled pink to see them all disappear into Camp No, because they’ve undercut impunity for US government crime on the Democrats’ watch. CONSPIRACY CONSPIRACY CONSPIRACY!!!11! don’t work so good no more, because of them.

  23. scribe says:

    Thanks for zapping that clown, BMAz. As much as you and I disagree on the gun issue – we are, basically, diametrically opposed – idiots like that one need to be banned.

    For future reference – on the gun and hunting sites (at least the mainstream ones), their best way to get rid of clowns like that is to get them apoplectic and gone by reminding them that either:

    (a) they are in the pay of Bloomberg to provide copy that can be waved about to make all gun owners/users/fans look like slavering maniacs getting ready to kill us all (so no one should respond to them), or

    (b) they are not in the pay of Bloomberg but are doing his work (see (a) above) for free and are therefore too stupid to be worth listening to (so no one should respond to them).

    It works.

    BTW, I’m still shopping for a nice Sterlingworth….

  24. shuck says:

    So it appears you didn’t post my last comment. I realize you don’t like rotating screen names, Bmaz, but you should be mindful that, as I’m sure you know, this is a heavily monitored site and for those that have had past problems, it just isn’t wise to leave a trail for a data dossier of any sort. That’s the entire point of Tor. That’s the point of a VPN. If one can’t comment safely here, I don’t see the point of visiting it at all.

    It’s far past time this site had ssl, as well. Every tom dick and harry sec on the planet probably sniffs/intercepts your servers. You know it.

    So the arbitrary nature of my comments not being posted for ostensibly my sin of criticizing libertarianism is pretty close to the last straw for me.

    • bmaz1 says:

      I have no idea what comment you are referring to; I see no previous such comment, under any of your aliases, and certainly none that involve the sin of “criticizing libertarianism”. Further, the thought that constantly rotating your mere screen name provides you any real security, other than deceiving the people you are interacting with, seems ill taken, to say the least.

  25. scribe says:

    Actually, all those folks in those agencies “shuck” mentions read this site so they can know what is really going on. If one were to doubt that, they would only have to go back to the “old” site where, back during the Scooter Libby trial and the lead-up to it, readership numbers were through the roof, particularly from people reading in places like the White House, the FBI, DoJ, NSA, CIA and DoD. I figure EW has been too busy doing actual work to spend much time on it, but I’ll bet all her reporting on the NSA and Snowden has a huge audience among the folks who work in the cubicle farms of the alphabet soup of spook agencies, who only get to see their tiny corner of things and want to see the whole picture. Though I’ll bet a lot of them read at home on the family computer, where they can blame the access on their kids.

  26. shuck says:

    @BMAZ If that’s the case, I apologize. I spent a lot of time and hard thinking on my last post, and I’m sure it said “awaiting moderation.” I thought it important, such as it is from only one commenter in the sea. It frustrated me. The gist was that I was thought it a very bad idea for progressives to align with Ayn Randian libertarians as opposed to the rest of the libertarian spectrum, and why. I was very critical of the strategy.
    The thing is, I’ve seen multiple instances of paraphrased quotes and ideas that clearly were gleaned from EW’s site and her original thinking, and used in a pre-emptive fashion meant to head off productive discourse elsewhere. I know it’s next to hopeless to really remain anon, but I’m of the camp of why make it easier for x, y, z? anybody? But there still remains the question of how a post awaiting moderation vanishes, right?

    I dont know how expensive SSL is, but at least it announces non-permission to use, at a minimum, open source tools to read the communication until it’s approved. I shudder to think what one might think I’m saying when I’m drafting a comment, I often use the process to find out what I really think! It’s a long habit. And drafting off-site usually makes the formatting fubar when pasted back in. In any case, I apologize for the misunderstanding, truly, I think the world of you all and most of the commenters.

    • bmaz1 says:

      For what it is worth, I went back two or three days and looked for it. Could find nothing in any folders. The only one was the one I freed up that started this conversation. No clue what happened, but if it is here, I sure couldn’t find it. Also for what it is worth, we too have security concerns and that is one reason there is stepped up moderation filters and why more comments get caught up than used to. It is a tough balance to strike. Some of the people that get caught up have been with us nearly ten years. It is unfortunate, but everything keeps getting more complicated.

  27. matt carmody says:

    I read a great book in 1990 about Gordon Kahl and Posse Comitatus. For those who don’t remember the inaugural Farm Aid concerts and the history behind them it’s a very good primer on both legitimate and whacko reasons for resistance to the government. Farmers were committing suicide back then because their farms were being foreclosed due to various government and banking actions towards family farms. It was a kind of American enclosure movement, throwing small farmers off their land and making the land available for sale.

    The book is Bitter Harvest by James Corcoran.

  28. shuck says:

    Thanks for checking Bmaz, I’m no security savvy person, but I do, and have had problems on my end for years. So I can’t really rule out much. But it’s really odd that something awaiting moderation would just vanish. I hope you find out what happened, particularly in light of those two weird log-in experiences I mentioned to you earlier. On the other hand maybe it’s just wordpress bugs or something. But my having three instances of weirdness on your page in a week is a lot of lightning striking the same tree. Especially if other participants have not had problems at all. I certainly don’t want to be a vector for any problems on your end. Hrmmm. I just don’t know how to keep it any cleaner tcp/ip-wise on my end.

    • bmaz1 says:

      Well, let’s see how things play out. Word Press can be buggy, and we have and a few too. Sometimes they are hard to find and fix. We do try to be responsive.

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