An Idaho man has been charged with trying to assassinate President Obama or his staff by allegedly using a high-powered rifle to fire two bullets at the White House, sending one bullet into a window -- where it was halted by security glass.
Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez, 21, of Idaho Falls was arrested Wednesday in Pennsylvania after a multi-agency manhunt and made his first court appearance just minutes ago in a Pittsburgh federal courtroom. He will remain in federal custody while he is transported back to Washington.
If convicted of "knowingly" trying to "kill the President of the United States," he faces up to life in prison. Ortega sat quietly as the hearing began, his hands free but his feet shackled. Ortega said only, “Yes, ma’am” when he was asked if he understood that he would be going back to Washington to face the charges, according to the Associated Press.
Authorities have said that the suspect is obsessed with President Obama, believed he was "the devil" and needed "to be taken care of" when he allegedly took aim at the presidential mansion, cracking one of the windows outside the Obamas' living quarters, according to media reports.
I would bet my bottom dollar that this guy is either listening to Right Wing radio, or an avid Fox news viewer, or both.
I am all for free speech in this country, but the kind of vitriol that spews from these right wing sources could be creating an army of potential assassins, who have been conditioned to believe that the man sitting in the White House is not ONLY doing bad things for this country, but is indeed the embodiment of ALL evil in the world.
Personally I think if evidence is uncovered that proves this man got his ideas from Fox News, or Rush Limbaugh, or Glenn Beck, or some other Right Wing asshole, that there should be consequences. I mean what happens if somebody listening to these programs, where they are told repeatedly that the President is a Socialist, or a Muslim, or the freaking Anti-Christ, gets lucky and actually manages to put a bullet into our President? I am totally against censorship, but we are talking about programs that purposefully fan the flames of hate through misinformation, and venomous rhetoric.
Shouldn't there be some accountability, before it's too late?
Go ahead, tell me why I'm wrong.
Remember what happened to the Dixie Chicks, just for stating that they were ashamed that W was from Texas? Their lives were turned upside down, CD's burned, concerts boycotted, death threats talked about. Now anyone can say anything about the man who is the President. No respect whatsoever. Limbaugh, Beck, O'Reilly, Rove and the rest are responsible for all the hate talk. Murdoch's empire. along with Koch's, deserves to have to face responsibility.
ReplyDeleteMan being charged, Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez, is from Idaho... interesting...
ReplyDeleteIsn't Alaska's Sarah "I'm A Hoe" Palin from Idaho too?
Is this guy a Palin follower?
And Fox labels him the "Occupy" assassin during the morning show - what a surprise.
ReplyDeleteYou're not wrong Gryphen!
ReplyDeleteGlenn Beck and Limpballs are the worst of the worst for racism, sexism, outright lies, and promoting the "exceptionalism" myth.
On top of all that, you'd think that Beck was a preacher lately, the way he touts his "faith" and religion as being the only hope for Rill 'Mericans. He sounds more deluded than Granny $arah, if that's possible
Limbaugh is a much more clever and insidious villain. His special gift to the low information folks in flyover land is to dig up any irrelevant bullshit, and present it as a huge crisis.
That's when he's not spewing hate, racist lies, making jokes about women's periods, and bomb throwing like Paylin was during her brief run for VP>
I agree, and what does the House do this week? Pass a relaxed concealed carry bill so the same assholes can get a permit in one state and it has to be accepted everywhere...so much for the state's rights they are always trumpeting. And meanwhile, Fox calls the peaceful occupiers all kinds of vile names. Watch. This vile spawn of theirs will be a 'liberal' or a hero. Somehow, angry as we were at Bush, none of us took a gun and fired at him, did we?
ReplyDeleteThe problem is rooted deeper...in religion, in beleiving in an antichrist boogey man, in believing one religion is better than another. We need to change humanity in order to change this without censorship.
ReplyDeleteYou are right. Also obsessed with President Obama, is Sarah Palin,
ReplyDeleteall you had to do was listen to her on Hennity. His hatred is different too Palins, she acts like a woman scorned.[Hannity is raciest]Palins is different. That's why I believe she is not running for President because she couldn't bash him so much.her hatred is palatable.
This is very disturbing. This guy shot into the first family's living quarters. This is tremendously troubling.
ReplyDeleteI so worry for our President and family in this regard. Limbaugh, Beck and Palin should be put somewhere and never heard from again as far as I'm concerned.
ReplyDeleteIt's wonderful seeing the job President Obama is doing in spite of the Republicans in Congress. Plus, look at the welcome he received in Australia!!! He IS well respected outside of the USA in spite of what the right indicates.
Keep President Obama and his family in your prayers everyone. We are in for a rough road ahead in this upcoming election process...the Republicans have no one that can beat him, but they'll try to tear him down in every way they can. Get out and vote and encourage others to do so too.
He sounds like one or two of the c4p ers that claim the world is ending if Obama gets in again. A couple of them really are in doomsday mode and are trying to convince everyone else that the America they know will be gone. Physically gone. They are crazy, even a few of the regulars there point it out. The saner ones have left.
ReplyDeleteI don't know where it all started, but there are crazy people out there who listen and watch all the rhetoric, and take everything very literally.
Gryph, I am with you on the far right hate speech and extreme religious beliefs, but this man suffers from mental illness. "Seeing the devil" is commonplace in people who suffer psychotic breaks.
ReplyDeleteYou're not wrong. Unfortunately when you dumb your base down, this is what happens when the base can't tell the difference between reality and a metaphor.
ReplyDeleteGee, I wonder if Sarah Palin will want to "hang 'em" and bring her own rope? I hope he feels the full weight of the law for (allegedly) attempting to assassinate the president. He must be made an example in order to stop this idea that there are "Second Amendment solutions" to problems.
ReplyDeleteOkay, I'll tell you why you are wrong, Gryphen: because if these anti-free speech laws were passed now to stop these nasty, farcical attacks on Obama (socialist, muslim, antichrist, etc) those same laws could be used in the future to attack anyone rightfully complaining about a Republican president who was behaving like...well, like Bush.
ReplyDeleteThat said, the way a Rightwing propaganda machine is allowed to call itself Fox "News" and spew lies is wrong. I just don't know the solution.
You can add Doug Urbanski to the list of RW Radio Assholes...worse than Rush. He's huge Cain-Palin supporter and you would believe the crap he says about Obama..totally disgusting, can't believe he's allowed on the radio.
ReplyDeleteYou're not wrong, Gryphen. The kind of reckless hate mongering that we allow on our airwaves would be illegal in most Western democracies. I believe it only a matter of time before some deranged, well armed nut like this assassinates some political official and squarely claims that he did so on the instructions from FauxNews, Limbaugh, et al. Maybe THEN, we'll hold people responsible for inciting violence in others.
ReplyDeleteThis is NOT a freedom of speech issue, this is about being responsible for one's own words. As it stands, we don't hold Murdoch, O'Reilly, Limbaugh, et al. responsible for what they say. If we did, they'd all be in jail.
I'm looking forward to the corrective measures in our legal code that makes THAT possible.
anon @ 4:57
ReplyDeleteYes, he's probably mentally ill, but he lives in the same hate filled, lying media, propaganda spewing world we live in. It fed into his fears. His illness just keeps him from being rational enough to know Obama in not actually the devil.
Okay, I'll tell you why you are wrong, Gryphen: because if these anti-free speech laws were passed now to stop these nasty, farcical attacks on Obama (socialist, muslim, antichrist, etc) those same laws could be used in the future to attack anyone rightfully complaining about a Republican president who was behaving like...well, like Bush.
ReplyDeleteThat said, the way a Rightwing propaganda machine is allowed to call itself Fox "News" and spew lies is wrong. I just don't know the solution.
****************
No your wrong! Free Speech is different than "HATE" speech! Go to the Southern Poverty law center and have a look.
And BTW Fox is spewing HATE speech and should be off the air. But all msm is now controlled by RWNJ. It will get worse. Better yet turn it all off except for current or internet new.
Twitter is good for news.
Ortega is sick in the head. His family reported him missing in Idaho, knowing he was unstable and could get into trouble. Thanks to our wonderful (lack of) a healthcare system for the working classes and the conservative disdain for mental health programs, people like Loughner and Ortega are free to roam until they hurt someone, and then our taxpayer dollars go for their incarceration.
ReplyDeleteYet it's "socialist," "nanny state," "confiscatory" and too expensive to provide care and education to the masses. How much more cost-saving would it be to invest in psychologists, counselors, and intervention specialists rather than in prison guards and jail wardens? Oh no, that would be liberal pansywiping Big Brotherism. You just know those mental health professionals vote Democrat.
If Limbaugh, Hannity, Urbanski and the Politichix had any decency whatsoever, they would SELF-CENSOR, much the same way as we observe rules of grammar and obey traffic regulations. I'm not referring to Soviet-style repression of thought, I'm saying that as citizens of a democracy, those sclerotic right-wing lardbrains should converse using the manners their mamas failed to teach them. Points should be made by the strength of one's argument and the brilliant facility of one's reasoning, but as they fail therein they resort to shouting, ad hominem attacks, and rhetorical calls to arms.
And then they deny that they had anything to do with the results.
Damn, he just makes me BURST with pride!
ReplyDeletePresident Obama in a Land Down Under
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=uri6GJpdp4s
You're not wrong, Gryphen! And, last time I checked, we still can't yell "Fire!" in a crowded movie theater. The traitors at FOX yell "Fire!" all the time . . . just ask Gabby Giffords.
ReplyDeleteOBAMA Landslide in 2012!!
Can we identify which right winger calls Obama the "devil" and says he should be "taken care of" the most?
ReplyDeletePerhaps we can provide a little buddy to stand beside Ortega during the trial.
It is a crime to incite violence against the government and the President....right?
I'm reposting this comment I made on another site about the Right Wing and what they really would like to see happen:
ReplyDeleteLet's face it - from the time of campaigning for the '08 elections - the GOP/Teabaggers/RWNJs have been fomenting violence against Barack Obama including (and continuing to this day) dog whistles to any and all wannabe Presidential assassins to answer the call to get the job done.
That's why we hear about comments like "it (shooting the President) is TEMPTING" re: shots taken at the White House, see images produced by them of President Obama with a noose around his neck, threatening "2nd amendment" solutions", socialist, commie, Kenyan, Satan, terrorist, et al, - all "good-naturedly" laughed off as "jokes".
They are playing to ignorant fears and anger, and providing a seemingly justifiable rationale to the feeble minded for such violence - to "save" our country and the American way of life from President Obama - any good patriot can identify with that, eh?
Quite frankly, I guess Sarah Palin must have been showing restraint for NOT putting crosshairs on a pic of the President, but I have no doubt her managers discussed this as a possible good idea for a political ad.
I hate to say this, but, I can't help but believe this is really what they'd like to see happen. Then they can all act contrite and do a video of denial in the vein of Palin's "Blood Libel" poor me, how unfair to blame US for causing this.
Not only do they fish for a sucker constantly to do their dirty work re: "removing" the President by any means, they also barrage the airwaves with propaganda to deal with Dems/Liberals/Immigrants/Minorities, Muslims, etc., etc., etc. in the same way - it seems to be never ending.
Palin got lucky with Loughner - he followed through. Especially with the Repub candidates lineup - this is going to get a lot worse - they know none of these idiots stand a chance against President Obama. Who will be shot next - the President?
BTW - couldn't bring myself to watch that Idiot TV vid of Victoria Jackson and her low IQ cohorts. Already had my fill of that shit today- accidentally tuned into a radio station "Bayou Radio", thinking it'd be nice to listen to Louisiana sound.
BIG MISTAKE - the folks on there were spewing hate right and left against President Obama, and threw out the latest RWNJ hate meme - that the reason the Sandusky's pedophilia case is being covered so much now is not because it's such a sick crime against children (if he is guilty) but because the MSM Liberal Media is trying to distract us from what a commie, socialist, criminal, Muslim-loving (etc, etc!) President Obama is.
Bayou Radio, of course, linked pedophilia to the "Twinks" (read that "Gays") Sandusky had underaged sex with (read that - the victims were Twinks - like Justin Bieber, not that they were innocent children)!
They think it was unfair to bash that Republican college ignoramus for "joking" about how tempting it is to shoot the President. They also threw in swipes at the dirty, filthy, unemployed OWS protesters and laughed their asses off at Liberal Democratic "Chicks" who all dress in black and are ugly Goth women - unlike Republican girls who all look like cute cheerleaders.
It was so putrid, at first I really thought it was a parody. I COULD NOT BELIEVE a radio station could put out that kind of vile philosophy. Sorry everyone, just had to RANT.
I was pretty upset, deleted it from my queue as fast as I could. I should have had my head examined for expecting anything different from a State where blacks are vilified as much as they are there.
You are not wrong. What really gets me is that we don't stop these idiots. Simple remedy, turn them off. With no viewers, they just go away. I think we should start a campaign, the IF YOU LIVE THIS COUNTRY TURN OFF TALK RADIO campaign.
ReplyDeleteYou should look into the Telecommunications law rewrite in 1996, this is the key piece of legislation the republicans passed to bring us into our current situation. This is the way FOX and Clear Channel/Premiere Radio and the other conservative broadcasting outfits have come to be the clear & present danger to our nation. This happened on purpose.
ReplyDeleteWhen Palin gets on national tv and incites violence and obviously gets off on talking about how she will be the first to tie the noose it incites all her crazies into action. This is twice now that she has directly been responsible for extreme violence (not counting Shaeffer).
ReplyDeleteHe's posted a WONDERFUL mainfesto, addressed to Oprah, on "You Tube"
ReplyDeleteI'll spare you the pain of sitting throught the whole thing, but the man believes he's Jesus Christ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ybhm7p5aCLE&feature=related
"It's not a coincidence I look like Jesus Christ, but I AM the Jesus Christ you all have been waiting for"
If you care to sit thorough the entire thing, see his similarities to the illness we know as Sarah Palin, then You Tube is the place to look it up.
Notice the fireplace in the background, the unkempt hair, and the honking rosary beads around his neck.... "hellooooooo Lou Sarah!"
I'm with you, Gryph.
ReplyDeleteFox and it's ilk, villify peaceful protest and actually compare this POS to the occupiers, Fox keeps fanning the flames of hate with bellows like Hannity, dipshit O Reilly, the bimbettets, GVS, etc.
Free Speech is one thing, but hate speech has it's consequences. The President's home gets attacked, and Herman Cain gets Secret Service Protection - What the hell for?
The repugnantcans supported a portion of President Obama's jobs bill, because it applied to vets. They discuss pressing issues, like "in God We Trust", "Obama's birth certificate" and "Don't raise taxes on anyone, especially the job creators (code for filthy rich).
I guess their belief in fewer regulations when it comes to carrying weapons is fine, jarret laughner, the jesus dude who shot the white house are protected by the law. Gee where's the outrage on the right?
humerous bit of the day, Perry wants to debate Pelosi face to face on the issues. He sent her a letter saying he'll be in Warshington on Wednesday and wants to debate her. She responded with, paraphrasing from memory, "Yes, I recall receiving his letter, lets see, Wednesday... One, I have a meeting in the morning, ... Two I'm scheduled to visit a company... Three..Three..... I don't know... ooops!"
Now, THAT'S a debate I'd pay money to see, can anyone imagine?
It will be Gabby Giffords all over again with the right turning themselves into the victims, ala Princess Sarah, if anyone tries to suggest they contributed to misguided violence in any way.
ReplyDeleteThus has it always been. The right has historically gotten a pass for their violent and hateful ways because they generally represent an entitled majority that is able to sympathize at some level with their sense of grievance. Look no further than Weimar Germany pre-Hitler and the little wrist-slap, pseudo-imprisonment Hitler got for trying to violently overthrow the govt of Germany years before he was simply handed power. We all know how well that worked out.
Not taking these violent, egotistical nutcases seriously is going to bite the world in the ass again. Just give it time.