D.C. Shooting: Time To Revisit Criticism Of “Right Wing Extremists” Report
Remember the enormous controversy that erupted in April over a Department of Homeland Security report that assessed the threat of “right wing extremists”? The story provoked days of nonstop cable chatter, forcing DHS chief Janet Napolitano to ultimately apologize.
Today, a gunman entered the Holocaust Museum and exchanged fire with security guards, leaving one in grave condition. MSNBC reports that the suspected gunman is connected to anti-government and white supremacist groups. If that proves correct, perhaps it’ll be time to revisit all that criticism of the DHS report. Right?
This passage from the DHS report in particular sparked a huge outpouring of rage on the right:
Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.
Conservatives looked at this passage and decided it was about them. But this report, which repeatedly talked about lone wolf types, was warning local law enforcement authorities about people exactly like this alleged gunman. And this is the second such incident this month, following the murder of Dr. Tiller.
John Aravosis thinks he’s found the suspected shooter’s Web site. If this gunman proves to be an anti-government zealot and white supremacist, there will be tons of cable chatter and mea culpa-ing to the effect that the DHS was doing exactly what it was supposed to be doing in issuing that report. Right?
Update: TPM has lots more on the alleged shooter’s whacked views.
Update: Now that it’s emerging that the suspected shooter may be a “birther,” will GOP Congressmen pushing “birther” bill drop their crusade?
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My recollection is somewhat different. I thought most conservatives were upset with the bit that implicated those opposed to abortion or immigration. I thought conservatives were upset with the bit that slimed veterans. I thought conservatives were upset that the report was very light in actually naming any specific groups.
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Prayers for the gravely injured guard.
sbj, the criticism was very broad, hit a number of things. the basic point here is that DHS was doing exactly what they were supposed to be doing.
@Greg: I agree, the DHS was doing what it was supposed to be doing. This was, after all, initiated under Bush. A caveat applies – the report was poorly written, as has been admitted (even by yourself?) The report should be reissued after they fix the admitted mistakes and after they go through the standard review process that was ignored.
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This is a tragedy but it was not caused by the right complaining about this report. Let’s not use a tragedy such as this for a blame game or political gain. And thank goodness those guards were armed.
More on this guy at my site. It is scary
http://www.thewholedelivery.com/2009/06/breaking-news-on-todays-holocaust.html
sbj, I’m not using anything for anything. This is about simple fairness. DHS was roundly criticized for this. People should acknowledge that DHS was basically doing what it was supposed to be doing.
SBJ, Greg is not saying this for political gain. He is bringing up the very fair and rational point that Napolitano was justified in that report, and deserves an apologize for how she was smeared by some on the right for the report.
This is a serious situation still growing, and yet, they thought she singled them out, when what it was has turned out to sadly be the truth.
“sluggahjells | June 10th, 2009 at 03:18 pm
SBJ, Greg is not saying this for political gain. He is bringing up the very fair and rational point that Napolitano was justified in that report,”
You just spared me from having to say this.
The hate speech has got to stop – Free Speech does not mean you can say any damn thing you want to and the hate speech has to stop.
I don’t care anymore about claims of Free Speech with regard to this **** – it’s not. Rush and Glenn Beck and O’Lielly have got to be stopped. That’s all there is to it.
I think everyone is sort of missing Greg’s point. I take it that his point is that because the media coverage of the report and right wing criticisms was so over-the-top, that we should expect days of the same over-the-top bloviating about how DHS may have actually hit the nail right on the money. Unfortunately, as Greg knows and seems to coyly imply, cable news doesn’t do mea culpas. So he is basically saying that although there were days of coverage about the “controversy” over the initial report, it is unlikely that there will be any follo-up coverage on this report and reaction to it in light of recent events.
Bubba – no I get it – I was just putting in my two cents on it but Greg is absolutely right.
Bubba, me and Tena understand. Only Olbermann, Maddow, and Schultz will say that the DHS report was right all along, and even Shuster as well i guess.
@greg: Those people who said that the DHS should not issue ANY reports on right wing extremists should apologize. My recollection is that reasonable conservatives agreed that such reports have a legitimate purpose but that this particular report had the specific mistakes I referred to above. Of course the DHS was basically doing what it was supposed to be doing, I disagree with anyone who says/said otherwise. There were many problems with this specific report and it was properly criticized and correctly withdrawn.
Weren’t some conservatives calling for Napolitano’s resignation?
sbj, I think what most conservatives were upset about is the fact that these types of domestic terrorists, you know, the right-wing ones, are just that…affiliated with the right-wing and they are so “reactionary” to that…they just went off for days with all of these bogus talking points, and by the way, the DHS report started under Bush…domestic terrorism is nothing new and DHS should be reporting on it, just as they do terrorism threats to the US from abroad. And, let’s just be honest here for one second…Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols were prior military, Eric Rudolph and Scott Roeder were anti-abortion terrorists, and just take a look at what this idiot that just shot up the Holocaust Museum had to say about immigrants (much less, Jewish People and Black People):
From: “James W. von Brunn” Subject: FW: Henrik Holappa arrested Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 10:15:08 -0400
Millions of low IQ non-whites are encouraged to illegally invade the USA .
They are provided sanctuary, jobs, health-care schooling, by those intent upon
destroying Western Civilization. Whereas, the subject of this email, Henrik
Holappa, the Finn, who has committed no illegal acts, is arrested and
incarcerated illegally by American agents in Marxist employ.
And yet, the conservative talkers were just all up in arms over ONE PART of a report that is factually accurate and should be assessed by DHS, for the safety of all Americans. Well now, after all of that bruhaha by conservative talkers…look at what happens now…suddenly you have these right-wing nut cases coming out of the wood work to express themselves…the saddest thing of all is that the conservative talkers like to hear themselves talk so much and reassure each other about how right they are, that they can’t see the forest through the trees…there are plenty of crazies on the right and the left, but yet conservative talkers have somehow brought their crazies into the mainstream by defending them against the DHS report and look at how ridiculous they look now…moderate Republican’s are just shaking their heads in disgust, because there are a lot more moderates out there than these far-right winged talkers that keep railing on and on with their anti-government, anti-choice, anti-tax, anti-spending (now that Bush is gone of course), anti, anti, anti….that’s all they seem to talk about…and now that this has happened, instead of saying in response to Greg…why, yes, the DHS was wrongly accused in this case, and they should be diligent in protecting our citizens from these domestic terrorists, you have to take up some sort of cause as to justify what the conservative talkers were upset about…as a moderate myself…I am disgusted with these talkers and I am disgusted with the direction of the Republican Party (except the few moderates that are trying their best to hold on).
sbj~
I just read your additional comments stating that you don’t think that DHS was in the wrong on this…so I retract my point about you not saying so in my post above…the rest of my post stands, although not towar you personally, just toward the entire “conservative talking head peanut gallery” out there right now.
Why do they consider him ‘right wing’, it is the left who hates Israel and always complains about Zionism and such like this nut? They always criticize the Right for supporting Israel. Right Wing websites like TownHall and Free Republic go to the extreme of not allowing any criticism of Israel at all and go overboard to stand for Israel? This nut would not consider himself in any way ‘right’ by those standards.
“Why do they consider him ‘right wing’, it is the left who hates Israel a”
O brother! [rolls eyes alllll the way]
I’m serious about Rush – I get Mediamatters Rush reports every day and I read the the summaries they send me – hours 1, 2, and 3. And all day every day Rush advocates the overthrow of this government by any means.
That is not protected speech, dammit! I’ll argue this with anyone – I know con law, I really do.
“don’t care anymore about claims of Free Speech with regard to this **** – it’s not. Rush and Glenn Beck and O’Lielly have got to be stopped. That’s all there is to it.”
Well, let’s see now. If we had the Fairness Doctrine in place, if the FCC would enforce existing laws against hate speech on the public Airwaves, if the Corporations did not control all over what gets out over the air, if folks who are being libled and slandered would sue the folks perpetrating the lies…then they would be stopped. But it’s too late…this has been 30 years in the making, and you can thank corporate america for that. Short of any sort of violent intervention, these guys are here for good, or I should say they are here permanently for the worse. And I’ve got a feeling the hatesters are only getting warmed up.
The following link is a report from July 2008, released during Bush’s presidency entitled:
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White Supremacist Recruitment of Military Personnel Since 9/11
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http://cryptome.org/spy-whites.pdf
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Not only did this report during Bush’s administration target vets, it also targeted Christians with statements such as these:
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“Several white supremacist extremist groups, including the Church of Jesus Christ Christian/Aryan Nations, adhere to Christian Identity teachings, which anticipate the end of the world and the Second Coming of Christ based upon idiosyncratic interpretations of the Bible. One interpretation anticipates God will use the chosen race (white Christians) as a divine weapon against the forces of evil (nonwhites and Jews) in a purifying race war preliminary to Christ”s establishing God”s kingdom on earth.”
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Where was the outrage at Bush targeting Christians and vest in the same report?
No one could have imagined…
Greg-remember Republicans don’t read memos discussing potential terrorist attacks…
Sec. Rice told me that these are just historical documents. No need for an apology.
So where does the Little Rock murder and shooting of military personnel by a muslim convert fit into this ‘right wing’ theory?
It seems that some people are just waiting for an incident to condemn so-called right wingers but are strangely silent when the events don’t fit their hatred.
Bob W – NO the Fairness Doctrine didn’t work that way; it is arguably a prior restraint on actual free speech and is totally unenforceable with today’s broadcasting reality.
You can’t enforce it against foreign broadcasters, for instance. And what about cable programming people pay for? And there are hundreds of channels broadcasting. It’s totally out of date.
White supremacist, hates Jews with a passion … hmmmm, matches the profile of a socialist German leader during the 30s & 40s whom the left passionately supported until he attacked uncle Joe (Stalin that is).
Um-WallaWalla-go educate yourself on the statements this domestic terrorist made about Jewish people and “non-white” people-he is affiliated with the white suprem. movement, which, by definition, is considering “right wing” and you may be getting all of those Rush/Beck/Liddy talking points all jumbled up in your head…the left does not hate Israel, in fact the majority of Jewish people are Dems/liberals…good lord.
DavidAdams,
Please stop with the unintelligent thoughts.
@DavidAdams
I think that is a good question. That incident seems extremely isolated at the moment in contrast to the increase in activity from right-wing fringe individuals. In contrast, we also have a hefty portion of the FBI doing surveillance and more on muslim-type people in the U.S. See the Bronx losers for an example. However, the question is how much surveillance is going on of these right-wing nut jobs? It doesn’t seem like much and the impression I get is that in accordance with the reaction to the DHS report, any action on these folks would be considered “political”, by sympathetic and right-wing organizations. See Operation Rescue’s response to the Tiller murder as an example, despite some contacts with the murderer.
David~ the DHS report addressed all forms of terrorism effecting the United States, left wing, right wing and muslim extremists…the point is that the right wing conservative talkers were “all up in arms” over the “right wing” part of the report…they made no objections to the left wing or muslim extremists part of the report, only thre right wing part…spin all you want about the Little Rock shooting (which is a deplorable domestic terrorist incident)…but it is the conservative right wing talkers that elevated this argument to the forefront by all their “outrage” about right wing extremists, some were even calling for Napalitano’s resignation for godssake…so now that right wing extremists are popping up in the last week or so, don’t try to spin around it with Little Rock, your points would be more legitimate if you would acknowledge that the DHS report is correct…correct about left wing extremists, correct about muslim extremists and correct about right wing extremists.
Tena,
Well there has to be something put in place, so what would you suggest? You cannot have 24-7 hate speech allowed to proceed uninterrupted unless you want to completely explode the home-grown hate/terrorist movement.
I suggest, really, that enough pressure be put on Clear Channel and their advertisers that they get the message that this is not protected speech and they tell Rush to cool it.
Same with Fox – and if Murdoch is going to be as insane as he is – bring it the hell on!
After thinking more about it, BobW – I think the FCC needs to step in.
Maybe we should encourage them…
And Congress might consider passing some laws about what is protected on the airways and what isn’t = like overthrowing this government by any means, which ain’t.
Whew! I thought this guy might be a terrorist.
/The Media
At the risk of offending Greg or Tena, I’d like to paste something from a conservative site. I think it addresses some of the comments here and also represents the opinions of most legitimate right-leaning voices:
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“Yet again, we have a despicable attack based on hatred and political extremism, the third such attack in two weeks to result in fatalities. Doubtless many people will try to find ways to score political points, like the e-mailer who waited a whole 20 minutes to blame conservatives for dismissing the DHS report on right-wing extremism for this tragedy.
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“To that, I’d respond that our criticism was that the DHS report didn’t focus on known, specific threats, instead making generalized threats about abortion opponents and other vague and broad generalizations about conservative issues. In fact, it never mentioned Holocaust denial at all, nor did it mention anti-semitism at all, either; those terms don’t appear at all in the report.
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“And despite being well-known as a threat since the 1980s, the DHS never bothered to identify von Brunn or his organization as a specific threat in the report — which, again, was the heart of our criticism . . . People who commit crimes bear the entire responsibility for those crimes . . . our prayers go to the family of the murdered guard and all who were traumatized by this shooting, which is where our thoughts should be, rather than political fingerpointing.
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“Kathy Shaidle reports on von Brunn’s ideology, which was hardly “conservative” or even “right wing”. He was also a Truther. That doesn’t make all Truthers responsible for this attack, either.”
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http://hotair.com/archives/2009/06/10/white-supremacist-kills-guard-at-holocaust-museum/
sbj~ thanks for the post…didn’t mean to go off on you earlier, my comments were really aimed at a bigger issue…i understand what you are saying with the comment you are posting here, however we also have lots of other comments going on and even Shepard Smith is addressing it..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxvunbIWNyI&feature=player_embedded
The guy posted at FreeRepublic, he’s obviously a liberal.
@JennD: I think your basic theory is that conservative talking heads are somehow inciting these extremists to kill people. I don’t believe that. Even if I did, I believe that speech must be free, and free speech, necessarily, includes hate speech (although I would never classify something that Rush says as hate speech).
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There are parallels to the discussion regarding the release of prisoner abuse photos. Obama doesn’t want them to be released because he fears they will incite an adverse reaction. Many commentors here believe one of two things: 1) That they won’t do anything of the sort or, 2) Even if they do it’s a legal matter and they should be released anyway. Conservative ‘hate speech’ either doesn’t incite violence at all (”People who commit crimes bear the entire responsibility for those crimes”), or Conservative ‘hate speech’ must be permitted as a legal matter, no matter the result.
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As a Libertarian I am opposed to virtually any control of speech. As a gay man I can speak with some experience having myself been the victim of hate speech; I am opposed to laws banning hate speech. I believe, ultimately, that freedom of speech itself is the best ‘cure’ for hate speech.
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I’m not sure that there are more whackos than ever – perhaps there are – and I’m not sure that their alleged increase is due to Sean Hannity, but I am of the opinion that what happened today is not the fault of conservative talking heads or free (call it hate) speech. I place the blame squarely and only on the shoulders of the perpetrator.
White supremacist, hates Jews with a passion … hmmmm, matches the profile of a socialist German leader during the 30s & 40s whom the left passionately supported until he attacked uncle Joe (Stalin that is).
Hard to tell if this is a parody or if someone has bought a pack of lies. Either way, the historical ignorance never ceases to amaze.
What the liberals are making excuses about was a statement made in very poor taste about the “Tea Party” participants, basically because they had the audacity to stand up to the Messiah that they had elected president and that they must be “RIGHT WING EXTREMISTS” and that returning veterans would be tempted to join them. It is our right to demostrate against this administration and I thought it was tacky and showed a complete lack of class when Mr. Obama labeled us as “ANGRY RIGHT WING EXTREMISTS”. When the uneducated movie star comedian types acused us of being racially motivated, that was very telling. I have found that when a liberal runs out of intelligent answers in a discussion, they invariably inject race into the issue (ABSOLUTELY ANY ISSUE). It is true that we (fill in whatever you want to label us as) want the Constitution followed to the letter, and the laws applied equally to all with the key word being equally. To even hint or compare us to this gunman or the person who killed the abortion doctor borders on insanity. 2% of any given population is psychotic. When the people of this fine country see an election rigged by the media, with laws as to voter registration, campaign finance totally trampled with no consequence, when the administration totally violates contract law, tries to nationalize automakers and banks, violates bankrupty law, tries to control pay in the private sector, do you honestly think that the AVERAGE AMERICAN CITIZEN is going to lay down and take it.? I do not think so. Please remember that every single American that has every taken up arms to defend this country has taken up an oath: TO DEFEND AND PROTECT THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES AGAINST ALL ENEMIES, FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. None of us have ever taken that oath lightly.
Greg: Welcome to the party. We’ve been here a while.
Greg mentions the DHS report on right wing extremists and along comes Roystoll to threaten armed insurrection. It doesn’t get any crazier than this.
Lex: Your comment is text-book. It is almost stereotypical. Dare I say it? You ARE an angry right-wing extremist, and your comment can be taken as excusing the violence perpetrated lately. YOU are what is wrong with this country right now.
“Let’s not use a tragedy such as this for a blame game or political gain. ” Why are these words preached every time a right wing extremist finally does what Rush, Glenn or Bill-O prods them to do? It’s time for the blame game right now.
This guy did the same thing.. without the shooting… back in 1981 – entered the Fed with a shotgun, supposidly to make a citizens arrest of Fed chairs…
Just a whackjob – they are out there. The left has its share, as does the right.
I enjoy free speech. You want it another way? Then repeal the 1st amendment.
You all regulate your speech, I’ve seen plenty of hateful comments on this site. – I will keep speaking freely here.
There are a lot of nuts. Most are harmless – but there are plenty in need of professional mental health. I am sure you see them on the streets of your city from time to time – you know – the ones talking to themselves and so on.
When a loon like this gets a gun and does something horrible – it’s no ones fault but his own. It is not the rights fault, it’s not the left’s fault.
I don’t like “hate” speech – but I also am very leery of having speech regulated. Who defines what is hate speech? I see a lot of hate from the left – plenty – more than from the right actually.
ann: Uh, WTH? Do you have me confused with another commenter?
regarding dhs fretting over vets who are “lost souls”.
lush et cabal go hellfire because it’s politically incorrect to do anything but worship vets (and currently serving).
unfortunately, unemployed vets have forever been a “burden” in every culture. 70’s vets became aryans, etc. various central american military/militias became gangs. medieval “knights” were often just the local mafia.
regarding von brunn. he was in “that place where left meets right” on the backside. a lot like larouche.
the reason why brunn fits *closer* to “right”, is only because currently “mainstream” right has shifted so far to the backside. (which is also the reason why the right is breaking apart. a painful process which they need to perform to survive.)
To pretend to define the insane by what they refer to themselves as, which is clearly what DHS did, is also insane.
Wake up Greg.