According to self-annointed guru David Neiwart , there six possible characteristics of eliminationist rhetoric: A: Expressing a desire or a demand for extermination, removal, or infliction of harm B: Identification of opponents with national enemies C: Identification of opponents as a target for retaliation or incarceration D: Expressing a desire for or approval of genocide or murder E: Identification with vermin or disease F: All of the above Now let's be clear: lots of people, especially those on the far right, are throwing around eliminationist rhetoric by this definition, and when it happens it deserves condemnation. I have condemned it, on occasion, but there is enough of it these days on both sides of the Demopublican divide that were I to spend my days condemning every piece as I heard it, there would be little time for blogging on anything else. Or eating. Or sleeping. But let's think locally, and examine the two recent statements by Delawaredem , both the one he o...

UPDATED: Delawardem has now struck out without apologizing for his call for the death penalty for offensive political speech. Read down to the last paragraph here, and find that I essentially predicted this cowardly behavior moments before it occurred. Here is what Michael Scheuer said on the Glenn Beck show: The only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States. It is an idiotic statement--even an anti-American statement--but it is protected free speech. It deserves to be either ignored as lunacy or condemned as noxious. Here is what Delawaredem thinks should happen to Mr. Scheuer and anybody who might agree with him (note please the use of my name--yet again--in one of DD's ridiculous rants): If you agree with that statement, you are a traitor to the United States of America, and you deserve to be arrested, tried, and put to death in as quick a manner as possible. Surely even Steve Newton can see that a ...

From Bloomberg : June 24 (Bloomberg) -- A New Jersey man described as an Internet radio talk show host and blogger was arrested for allegedly threatening to kill three U.S. Appeals Court judges in Chicago who earlier this month upheld a law banning handguns. Hal Turner, 47, of North Bergen was arrested by U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation agents at his home today, according to a statement issued by Chicago U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald. In the days after the judges’ June 2 decision to uphold a lower court’s dismissal of a National Rifle Association lawsuit challenging the ban, Turner posted on his Web site their names, photographs, phone numbers and work addresses, together with a picture of the courthouse delineating stanchions he called “anti-truck bomb barriers,” according to Fitzgerald. “Let me be the first to say this plainly: These judges deserve to be killed,” Turner allegedly said in one Web site posting, according to Fitzgerald. “We take threats to federal judges very s...

Yes. Obviously. Acting in concert with the ideas and rhetoric of radical anti-abortion groups, Scott Roeder allegedly (everybody knows why I have to say that) gunned down Dr. George Tiller in his church, not just to punish him for performing abortions, not just to stop him from performing abortions, but to sustain a climate of intimidation intended to make other doctors cease performing abortions. Was Timothy McVeigh a terrorist? Yes. Obviously, although his motivation to strike fear into government agents was a bit more diffuse and (in an abstract intellectual sense) difficult to pin down. But now let's try a thought experiment: Suppose Tim McVeigh had blown up the Murrah Federal Building with a truckload of fertilizer because he was working for a drug lord about to go on trial and had been ordered to eliminate several key witnesses regardless of the consequences. Would he have been a terrorist then? More difficult question? Well, let's see. Here's the current FBI defin...

So the 88-year-old white supremacist anti-tax anti-government anti-Semitic nutcase kills a guard at the Holocaust Museum, and there is an immediate {and by immediate, I mean within less than a couple of hours] move to portray him as a fringe part of the so-called Conservative movement, claim vindication for the DHS Rightwing terrorism report, and reiterate calls that the GOP has to rein in its rhetoric.... Then Newsmax --an unabashed right-wing shil outfit--goes out and finds a Reform Rabbi from New York: Rabbi Dr. Morton H. Pomerantz is a member of the Reform movement of Judaism and serves as a chaplain for the State of New York. A former Navy and Marine Corps officer and chaplain, he has also served as deputy national chaplain for the Jewish War Veterans of the United States. Rabbi Pomerantz then turns the table, and uses virtually the exact same language of hate speech, coded messages, and failure to rein in the fringe of his movement ... right back on President Obama: Our new pre...

I props to Angel Clark of SCCOR for managing to secure her group a front-page puff piece in today's WNJ ; as the group's public relations director she has achieved her goal. The WNJ, which has some talented reporters in Ginger Gibson and Rachel Kipp, however, got taken for a ride. Here's why: 1) The reporter didn't bother to interview anybody even vaguely critical of SCCOR; we know the WNJ staff reads the blogosphere, so how could they have missed the large numbers of folks worried about the use of language [even if I disagreed with them completely, their concerns are part of the story]. 2) The reporter is apparently blissfully ignorant of the Bill Colley Catholic Lord's Prayer controversy, and SCCOR's insistence on a particular Protestant version of that prayer at all their meetings. Instead, the article just mentions WGMD as fueling SCCOR without mentioning the controversy. 3) If the report was going to mention the group targeting certain politicians for def...

... by arguing (with real facts) that the DHS Rightwing Extremism report was politically slanted and horribly flawed. This is apparently the case that DelawareDem seeks to make by including my name in a thread in which I was not commenting: Steve Newton, I am so relieved you that you and other right wingers saved us from the hellfire known as the DHS Report. Yeah, right wing extremists are not violent at all. OK, asshole, I've had enough. You want to make the charge that I ever said there were no rightwing extremist groups, or that law enforcement should not investigate legitimate leads on groups or individuals? Back it up. Here's the link to virtually everything I have written since the DHS report came out. Find it, or have the stones to admit you're wrong. Here's what I actually said: Don't get me wrong: there are violent, nasty people out there: skinheads, black separatists, eco-terrorists, Muslim honor-killers, fag-bashers, beltway snipers.... There are also ...

Let's start with the obvious: Bill O'Reilly and others (Ann Coulter comes to mind) have been irresponsible, even dangerous in their invective against the late Dr. George Tiller . [But I will not exempt the late Dr. from legitimate and reasonsed criticism of his actions : victimhood does not equal sainthood.] The problem for those who would hold O'Reilly accountable is that the same strictures they'd think about applying would have prevented this , this , or even this [which is all that's left of this ] from appearing. Invoking the power of the State in any guise to stifle political discourse --no matter how nauseous--is anathema to the American Constitutional system of government. And in the words of Anonone : Violence comes more often from the oppression of speech rather than the free exercise of it. A free society entails risks. A society without risk is not free. Tough questions like this are where you come down on the side of freedom or security as paramou...

... have little to do with charged political rhetoric, but resids rather in who should be taking responsibility for not having him in jail or a mental facility a long time ago. Arrested in 1996, after a traffic stop based on his sovereignty license plate caused police to look in his trunk and find ... explosives. The DA was pretty explicit : Roeder had associated with the Freeman movement - a right-wing, anti-government group - causing then Shawnee County assistant district attorney James Brown to label Roeder a "substantial threat to public safety." "This defendant has chosen to exempt himself from our laws," Brown said during the August 1996 sentencing hearing. "He doesn't recognize your authority." Unfortunately, the officer who stopped Roeder apparently did not follow the rules: an Appeals Court over-turned his sentence based on an illegal search. Roeder did time again for parole violation [refusing to pay his taxes]. He visited the man in priso...

In the wake of the slaying of Dr. George Tiller in Wichita KS , Delawaredem takes this opportunity to write: I have just ordered a gallon of water for Steve Newton to use to wash down his foot. See, we were right. There are right wing extremists who are so pro-life that they will kill to make their point. They are terrorists and deserve to be treated as such. I first have to admit that I didn't get to wash down his foot , unless DD is suggesting either (a) some bizarre Catholic rite of contrition I've never experienced; or that (b) he wants me to be more hygenic before I put it in my mouth. Here's a simple response, that should not be difficult for him to comprehend: kiss my ass [and I'm not washing it first]. This is a wonderfully cynical example of Delawaredem's faux outrage, designed to score political debating points and (as always) to stifle political discourse that makes him uncomfortable. The game that DD and company love to play is this: conflate all po...

Darryl Perry is running for President ... in 2016 . Darryl ran a write-in Libertarian campaign for Senator in Alabama last year, and he pretty much feels that without a lot of money he needs a real long running start on the Oval Office. If you visit his site, you'll notice that Darryl--while I really like him--is a more radical libertarian than I am. Be that as it may, Darryl has found something really interesting in the new legislation proposed by Rep Peter King (D-NY): Recently the Department of Homeland “Security” issued two startling “reports” concerning “Right wing extremism”. The first report to be leaked mentioned supposed “threats” posed by military veterans and those who support Constitutionally limited government. The second “report” to leak was titled "Domestic Extremism Lexicon" and supposedly rescinded. However, a bill (HR 2159) was introduced by Representative Peter King (NY-3) titled “Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act of 2009”. Wh...

Here's what the CBS Golf Analyst said : From my own experience visiting the troops in the Middle East, I can tell you this, though: despite how the conflict has been portrayed by our glorious media, if you gave any U.S. soldier a gun with two bullets in it, and he found himself in an elevator with Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Osama bin Laden, there's a good chance that Nancy Pelosi would get shot twice, and Harry Reid and bin Laden would be strangled to death. Here's what DelawareDem said : He will be fired shortly. And screw the apology that no doubt will be forthcoming. I understand reacting in anger and wishing that all Republicans would die. I have done it. Anger can do strange things to you, and even though it is no excuse, at least it is understandable. By all accounts, Mr. Feherty was calmly answering a question in an interview, as if in a golf whisper. Hell, he may have even been joking. But whose jokes are as detailed in their murderous design. Yeah, Mr. Feherty h...

...and it will hurt, because it pretty much bashes the stereotypical and unfounded beliefs of those who have been trying to make it into a rightwing extremist organization (hello jason, nemski, anonone, and so forth) that should be under surveillance by the Feds.... Nancy Willing posts a piece by Judson Bennett , who actually attended the SCCOR meeting at which John Atkins and Colin Bonini spoke. You should read it all, but at the very least I commend to you the following snippets: I was there for the sole reason of learning first hand exactly what this group is about, its goals, and method of operation. Ron Macarthur, a reporter from the Cape Gazette was there, as well, and I'm sure he will be presenting his perspective for the local newspaper. The way I see it, contrary to rumors and innuendo, this growing group is neither a regiment, a quasi military group, or a radical organization of any kind. It is merely a group of ordinary, like -minded, hard working Sussex County citizens...

DelawareDem has a thoughtful piece up on our various differences regarding rightwing extremism and political rhetoric (and our mutual appreciation for a recent comment by Anonone, of all people), which contains this paragraph: But a problem remains. Right now, that violent fringe is being catered to in the extreme by the mainstream of the Republican party and the conservative movement, so much so that it is beginning to be difficult to tell the difference. They are being told that President Obama is a tyrant intend on taking their guns. They are being told that America is dying because of government spending. That Obama plans on opening large reeducation camps. That he is a terrorist, a muslim, a radical black Christian. That he is a fascist. That is both exploiting the violent fringe and empowering them. I want to try a little non-confrontational parsing here, paying particular attention to a couple of the charges. They are being told that President Obama is a tyrant intent on taking...

It never ceases to amaze me the lengths to which my friends at Delawareliberal will travel to defend an untenable position. In lampooning their continued harping on conservative political views as providing cover for rightwing political violence, as I did yesterday with a brief post about a crafting organization in Colorado called the Handmade Militia, I was trying to make a point that most readers here got, but they somehow ... missed: Quoth DelawareDem : Steve, maybe I missed a post of Cassandra’s, but I don’t think she was concerned about the existence or use of the word “militia.” Rather, the intent behind dangerous right wing extremists in forming “militias” to perform another Oklahoma City Bombing as a means of protest, yeah, that is what concerns us. And, of course, cassandra was quick to play the wronged virgin: Thank you, DD. I stopped trying to fix the misreadings of my posts a long time ago . But there is in his post a great example of what I was pointing out — the need bo...

Waiting for our local watchdogs to chastise the Handmade Militia for a politically inappropriate name.

First, a semi-random sampling of a local blogger doing her bit to sell the narrative that anyone who is not a liberal Democrat should have to spend all his/her time running around condemning violent extremists because they are to be portrayed as responsible for everything from Glenn Beck to the guy who killed cops in Pittsburgh: This kind of violent rhetoric is exactly the refuge of the worst of the current wingnuts and exactly why they got their outrage on over the DHS report. You can’t protect your own bullying and violent speech without having to cover for the terrorists in your midst too. This comes from the same little merry band that lined up to label Resistnet.com a potentially violent rightwing extremist group that should be on a DHS watch list somewhere. When I examined all their material and failed to find the slightest inkling of violent intent (in fact, quite the opposite), the rejoinder was--I kid you not: What do they mean by keep the powder dry ? Bath powder? So much...

... for the DHS report on rightwing extremism, even though she's apparently trotting it out all over the place: WaPo : Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano apologized directly today to Commander Dave Rehbein, head of the American Legion, after a recently leaked DHS intelligence report suggested that right-wing extremist groups might recruit military veterans returning from overseas deployments. The 45-minute meeting occurred at DHS headquarters in Washington this afternoon. A detailed account of the meeting from the American Legion states that "Hunched forward with head bowed, the Secretary of Homeland Security looked the National Commander of The American Legion straight in the eye and said, very quietly, 'I’m sorry, Dave.'" “The report was not worthy of this department, or of veterans,” Napolitano said to Rehbein, according Legion spokesman Craig Roberts, who attended the meeting. "It was very badly written and should never have been released,"...

... is that there was no story. Here are the most important paragraphs from MSNBC in July 2008: White-supremacist groups have recruited 203 people who served in the U.S. military or who claim to have U.S. military backgrounds , according to a new report by the FBI. The unclassified FBI Intelligence Assessment, issued last week and obtained by NBC News, cautions that white-power extremists are trying hard to recruit active-duty soldiers and recent veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. “White supremacist extremists hope to revitalize the white supremacist movement by exploiting antigovernment sentiment among opponents of the overseas conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan,” the FBI report states. It adds, however, that the effort is not going particularly well. “Although some veterans of these conflicts have joined the extremist movement, they have not done so in numbers sufficient to stem declines among major national extremist organizations, nor has their participation resulted i...