I'm in favor of a Personhood Amendment!

Only I want one for women and girls.

Thank you.

Pittsburgh Sikh Gurdwara - Vigil for Wisconsin Incident

Via Facebook:

Pittsburgh Sikh Gurdwara - Vigil for Wisconsin Incident
Public Event

When: Saturday, 7:30pm until 8:45pm

Where: Pittsburgh Sikh Gurdwara, 4407 McKenzie Drive, Monroeville, PA 15146

What: The tragic events at the Wisconsin Gurudwara (Sikh Temple) on Sunday left our entire nation devastated and shocked. We commend the bravery of the Oak Creek Police Department and others, especially, Lt. Brian Murphy, who heroically saved the lives of many. As we remember the innocent people who lost their lives, we also pray for the speedy recovery of the survivors.

Please join us as we come together as a community, both Sikhs and non-Sikhs and solemnly share a prayer in remembrance of the innocent lives that were taken and stand together as a force against hate.

Of Course There's No Right Wing Terrorism. Of Course Not.

There's rarely any truly domestic terrorism in this country - it's all those Muslims looking to impose Sharia on your aunt Sadie. And even if there is domestic terrorism, it's all those dirty hippies who smoke weed and read Saul Alinsky.  It's never ever right wing.

Unless it is.

From Reuters:

Federal authorities on Tuesday arrested four Georgia men accused of plotting to buy explosives and produce a deadly biological toxin to attack fellow U.S. citizens and government officials.

The Justice Department said the men were members of a fringe domestic militia group and had planned to manufacture ricin for use in their attacks.

But it wasn't just ricin:

At a meeting at Thomas' house in March, Thomas said he had enough weapons to arm everyone at the table and that he had compiled a "Bucket List" of government employees, politicians, corporate leaders and media members he felt needed to be "taken out" to "make the country right again," according to court documents.

The FBI has more:

Frederick Thomas, 73, of Cleveland, Ga.; Dan Roberts, 67, of Toccoa, Ga.; Ray H. Adams, 65, of Toccoa; and Samuel J. Crump, 68, of Toccoa, were arrested today relating to plans to obtain an unregistered explosive device and silencer and to manufacture the biological toxin ricin for use in attacks against other U.S. citizens and government personnel and officials.

U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia Sally Quillian Yates said, “These defendants, who are alleged to be part of a fringe militia group, are charged with planning attacks against their own fellow citizens and government. To carry out their agenda, two of the defendants allegedly purchased purported explosives and a silencer, while the other two defendants took steps to attempt to produce a deadly biological toxin. While many are focused on the threat posed by international violent extremists, this case demonstrates that we must also remain vigilant in protecting our country from citizens within our own borders who threaten our safety and security.”

TPM has more:

Thomas allegedly said that there “is no way for us, as militiamen, to save this country, to save Georgia, without doing something that’s highly highly illegal. Murder. That’s fucking illegal, but it’s gotta be done,” Thomas allegedly said.

“When it comes time to saving the Constitution, that means some people gotta die,” Thomas allegedly said.

On a subsequent April 16 meeting, Thomas, Roberts, Adams and others talked about the need to take action against the federal government, according to an FBI agent’s affidavit.

“I’d say the first ones that need to die is the ones in the government buildings,” Adams allegedly said. “When it comes down to it, I can kill somebody.”

Nope.  Not right wing domestic terrorism at all.

Understanding terrorism

(From A Moment to Think via Monkey Muck)

A Note On Richard Poplawski

Yes, they found him guilty. Yes, he killed those three police officers. And yes, he deserves to be punished for it.

All these things are true.

Know what else is true?

He was a right wing extremist, a right wing terrorist. A right wing domestic terrorist.

From the Trib in 2009:

A secret U.S. Department of Homeland Security report on "right-wing extremism" mentions by name only one potential domestic terrorist: accused cop killer Richard A. Poplawski.

The report was finished by Homeland Security's Extremism and Radicalization Branch and the FBI on April 7 — three days after the Stanton Heights gunfight during which Poplawski allegedly killed three police officers, Eric G. Kelly, 41; Stephen J. Mayhle, 29; and Paul J. Sciullo II, 36.

The report was intended only for law enforcement leaders, but the Tribune-Review was able to obtain a copy. It paints a disturbing picture of the rise of American hate-based groups that reject governmental authority in an era of foreclosures, unemployment and dwindling credit.

The report cites Poplawski, 22, as an example of "white supremacist lone wolves" or "small terrorist cells" inflamed by the possible passage of new restrictions on firearms and the recent election of America's first black president.

From that DHS report:

(U//FOUO) DHS/I&A assesses that a number of economic and political factors are driving a resurgence in rightwing extremist recruitment and radicalization activity. Despite similarities to the climate of the 1990s, the threat posed by lone wolves and small terrorist cells is more pronounced than in past years. In addition, the historical election of an African American president and the prospect of policy changes are proving to be a driving force for rightwing extremist recruitment and radicalization.

— (U) A recent example of the potential violence associated with a rise in rightwing extremism may be found in the shooting deaths of three police officers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on 4 April 2009. The alleged gunman’s reaction reportedly was influenced by his racist ideology and belief in antigovernment conspiracy theories related to gun confiscations, citizen detention camps, and a Jewish-controlled “one world government.”

Don't ever let them tell you there's no such thing as a right wing domestic terrorist.

Jack Kelly Sunday

It's Sunday and so the P-G's Jack Kelly spins. And is caught in a HUGE mistake.

I am not sure where he's going with this week's column, however. I think it's something about how the media's PC and are unwilling to call a terrorist a terrorist or something like that.

Let's start with the big time mistake. It's been a while since Jack's made a doozy this big and maybe the crack team of Jack fact-checkers over there at the Blvd of the Allies just blinked and missed it. Truth is, they should have checked and they should have called Jack on it. Let's start:

MSNBC anchor Contessa Brewer is bummed the man who put a car bomb in Times Square isn't a right winger.

"There was part of me that was hoping that this was not going to be anybody with ties to any kind of Islamic country because there are a lot of people who want to use this terrorist intent to justify writing off people who believe in a certain way or who come from certain countries or whose skin color is a certain way," she said on a radio show Tuesday.

Apparently, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg also was bummed to learn the bomber was Faisal Shahzad, 30, a naturalized citizen of Pakistani extraction who is a registered Democrat in Connecticut.

It's in that last sentence. Media Matters has a postmortem on this particular lie. They say it's from the rightwing blog "Rightpundits" and they report that RightPundits has already backtracked on it. But let's start, as they say, at the beginning. At this post at freerepublic.com (time stamped at May 4 12:51 GMT or 8:51 AM Pittsburgh time), we read:

An Islamic terrorist named Faisal Shahzad is the Time Square bomber according to media reports. He is Muslim of Pakistani heritage with dual citizenship in the United States, a registered Democrat in the state of Connecticut who may be an Obama donor.

With a link back to Rightpundits.

If you go to Rightpundits now (Sunday morning at 9:55am) you'll see:

An Islamic terrorist named Faisal Shahzad is the Time Square bomber according to media reports. He is Muslim of Pakistani heritage with dual citizenship in the United States, recently naturalized as a U.S. citizen under the Obama administration’s lenient open door policy. We have been unable to confirm earlier reports of his voter registration status as a Democrat. [emphasis added.]

As the time stamp on the Mediamatters reporting is May 5 at 11:25 AM, we know that sometime in that twenty-one hour time period 4 days ago, Rightpundits backtracked on the story.

And yet Jack is presenting this as a fact this morning. Unless he is in the habit of writing his Sunday column 4 days in advance, Jack Kelly should have known that an important source of this story could not confirm it within a day of its first appearance and that lack of confirmation is still "live."

This may not be as bad as Jack's Van Jones column that got pulled/yanked/erased from the P-G website (but only at the P-G - not the Toledo Blade - and only after this blog deconstructed it) but it's still wrong as wrong can be.

Note to my good friends at the P-G: THIS REQUIRES A CORRECTION/RETRACTION.

ON MONDAY.

But let's look closer at what Theresa Brewer said. When we do we'll see how Jack very subtly misquotes her. First off if you were to listen to what she had to say, you'd hear that she wasn't "bummed" about about the identity of the Time Square (near) bomber. The word she used was "frustrated." Why? What would frustrate her? If the bomber turned out to be Muslim then that might mean more of a backlash against Muslim-Americans. She was not bummed because he was Muslim. Very subtle spin there. But a spin, nonetheless.

Then we get to Mayor Bloomberg.

Jack writes:

On Monday, Mr. Bloomberg told Katie Couric of CBS he thought the bomber was "homegrown, maybe a mentally deranged person or someone with a political agenda who doesn't like the health care bill or something."

Here's how CBS reports it:

Law enforcement officials don't know who left the Nissan Pathfinder behind, but at this point the Mayor believes the suspect acted alone.

"If I had to guess, twenty five cents, this would be exactly that," Bloomberg said. "Homegrown maybe a mentally deranged person or someone with a political agenda that doesn't like the health care bill or something. It could be anything."

As a rhetorical device he was offering an opposite counter-example to foreign terrorism (which would be domestic terrorism.) But in the end he said it "could be anything."

But Jack says the Mayor thought the bomber was a "homegrown." Which is, as it clearly doesn't represent reality, not true.

But the fun doesn't stop. Jack again:

When he learned the truth, Mayor Bloomberg did not apologize for his smear of people who don't like Obamacare. Instead, he smeared the people of New York City.

"We are not going to tolerate any backlash against Middle Easterners or Muslims in New York City," he said.

And, of course, the Mayor's "smear" turns out to be nothing of the sort. This is what the Mayor said:

We will not be intimidated by those who hate the freedoms that make the city and this country so great. The fact that so many people are out and about in Times Square today or just came from really shows that, and I want to make clear that we will not tolerate any bias or backlash against Pakistani or Muslim New Yorkers.

All of us live in this city, and among any group, there's always a few bad apples, but the people that live in the city are proud of the fact that this is the city that gives everybody from every place in the world an opportunity no matter what religion they practice, no matter where they or their parents came from. It's the city where you can practice your religion and say what you want to say and be in charge of your own destiny and we're going to keep it that way.

People from every corner of the world come and live here in the same buildings and the same neighborhoods and that's what makes this the greatest city on earth. We will continue to doing everything we possibly can to protect New Yorkers from terrorist attacks. We have, as you know, built the most comprehensive and sophisticated counter terrorism operation of any local police force in the world.

See the smear? Yea, neither did I. Jack did, though.

And this is just the first few paragraphs. I'd like to continue, but it's Mother's Day and the lovely wife and I have some lovely plans.

Ok - just one more. Jack writes:

[Homeland Security Secretary Janet] Napolitano has virtually banned the use of the word "terror" in her department. But calling an act of terror a "man-caused disaster" doesn't make it go away. It's hard to stop a terrorist if you deny his existence.

Which is , of course, why, when you go to the Homeland Security website, you'll see this page, titled "Responsibilities" and at the top of the list there's:

Guarding Against Terrorism

Yea, she's denying that terrorism exists.

Right.

Can We Call THIS Domestic Terrorism?

From Talkingpointsmemo:

Nine members of the Christian militia group Hutaree have been indicted on multiple charges involving an alleged plot to attack police, including seditious conspiracy and attempted use of weapons of mass destruction, the U.S. Attorney in Michigan announced this morning.

If TPM is not your thing, then there's this from the AP:

A ninth alleged member of a Christian militia group that prepared to battle the Antichrist and the U.S. government was arrested after the FBI played recorded messages from family and friends, who urged the man to give himself up, over loudspeakers outside a home in rural Michigan.

Joshua Matthew Stone peacefully surrendered to heavily armed authorities Monday night. His father and seven others believed to be part of the Michigan-based Hutaree appeared in court earlier on charges they plotted to kill a police officer and slaughter scores more by bombing the funeral — all in hopes of touching off an uprising against the government.

Out of fairness (and we are nothing if not fair) we should point out that this is NOT the Michigan Militia and in fact:

Heidi Beirich, research director of the Southern Poverty Law Center, said her group learned about Hutaree last year while compiling its annual list of "patriot groups."

"Their Christian apocalyptic vision is quite different from most other militias," Beirich said. "Most don't put their religion first — they're more concerned with out-of-control federal government."

They're still religious fanatics and they're still terrorists and they're still Americans.

As is this guy:

A 38-year-old Philadelphia man was charged today with threatening to kill Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) in a profanity-strewn Youtube video that has since been pulled down.

In the video, Norman Leboon says Cantor will "receive my bullets in your office, remember they will be placed in your heads. You and your children are Lucifer's abominations.

Yea, when you call someone's kids "Lucifer's abominations" you're a religious zealot. And when you make threats based on that zealotry, you're a terrorist.