Militias and Right Wing "patriot" groups are now providing security for certain pro-Trump politicians. Oh, I have a bad feeling.

Courtesy of The Trace:  

Energized by Donald Trump’s coarsely confrontational nationalism, the armed right-wing fringe is doing more than stepping out of the shadows in 2017. Detachments of armed men in fatigues have become fixtures at liberal protests, forming the vanguard of what’s become known in some quarters as the “counter-resistance.” 

Now, in a smattering of states with histories of right-wing extremism, chapters of groups like the Oath Keepers and Three Percenters may be emerging as even more direct political players, providing security for local pro-Trump politicians and Republican organizations. In one case, a Three Percenter was found to be employed on a state lawmaker’s staff. 

When self-designated patriot groups first emerged during the early ‘90s, they identified as enemies of the “New World Order” heralded by George H.W. Bush, and tended to oppose the government, regardless of which party was in power. But experts say that the recent activity of some militia members could be evidence of a greater shift in political allegiances.

“You can’t be anti-government if your guy has the top job,” said Mark Pitcavage, who researches far-right extremism for the Anti-Defamation League. 

With right-wing extremists who venerate the president looking for new enemies, some state and local politicians who are remaking partisanship in Trump’s image may see militias as a way to tighten their grip on power. The brash political style and “America First” agenda ushered into the Republican Party by Trump appeals to people in the militia movement, drawing them toward the political mainstream, said Amy Cooter, a sociologist at Vanderbilt University. Just as important, Cooter said, groups like the Three Percenters are eager for confrontation with anti-Trump liberals, who are themselves taking to the streets. “On the local level, some Republicans appear to be tapping into that agenda.”

Yep, having armed Right Wing extremists managing crowds during political events and responding to protesters. Nothing about that seems like a disaster waiting to happen.

Some of you might remember that I wrote about this early last month.

However at the time it seemed to be happening only in Oregon.

Apparently in the era of Trump bad ideas spread like herpes. 

Nearly twice as many Americans killed by home grown extremists since 9-11 than by Islamic terrorists.

Courtesy of the New York Times:  

In the 14 years since Al Qaeda carried out attacks on New York and the Pentagon, extremists have regularly executed smaller lethal assaults in the United States, explaining their motives in online manifestoes or social media rants. 

But the breakdown of extremist ideologies behind those attacks may come as a surprise. Since Sept. 11, 2001, nearly twice as many people have been killed by white supremacists, antigovernment fanatics and other non-Muslim extremists than by radical Muslims: 48 have been killed by extremists who are not Muslim, compared with 26 by self-proclaimed jihadists, according to a count by New America, a Washington research center. 

The slaying of nine African-Americans in a Charleston, S.C., church last week, with an avowed white supremacist charged with their murders, was a particularly savage case. But it is only the latest in a string of lethal attacks by people espousing racial hatred, hostility to government and theories such as those of the “sovereign citizen” movement, which denies the legitimacy of most statutory law. The assaults have taken the lives of police officers, members of racial or religious minorities and random civilians. 

Non-Muslim extremists have carried out 19 such attacks since Sept. 11, according to the latest count, compiled by David Sterman, a New America program associate, and overseen by Peter Bergen, a terrorism expert. By comparison, seven lethal attacks by Islamic militants have taken place in the same period.

This follows a report by DHS which came to virtually the same conclusions.

Essentially what we now know is that while we are all in a blind panic over Islamic extremists we are being murdered here at home by our crazy extremist Right Wing neighbors.

Perhaps we should bring our military back home so that they can be here and start providing some REAL Homeland Security.

Organizer of armed protest outside of Phoenix mosque admits that he is playing right into the hands of ISIS.

Courtesy of Raw Story:  

CNN host Anderson Cooper pushed the ex-Marine Corps member on Thursday who organized what he insists is a non-violent protest at a Phoenix mosque supporting “freedom of speech.” 

“You don’t think bringing guns to a mosque while families are praying inside, wearing t-shirts that say ‘F Islam’ and shouting whatever it is you’re going to shot at them, as they come and as they go — you don’t think that’s promoting violence at all?” Cooper asked Jon Ritzheimer, who has promoted the event by announcing a “Draw Muhammed” contest, which would violate Islamic teachings banning depictions of the Muslim prophet. 

“I think the whole thing — the cartoon contest, especially — I think it’s stupid and ridiculous,” Ritzheimer conceded. “But it’s what needs to take place in order to expose the true colors of Islam.”

After quite a bit of back and forth Anderson Cooper corners Mr. Ritzheimer and asks him this:  

“Aren’t you playing into their hands?” Cooper asked Ritzheimer, following up on Mudd’s point. 

“Isn’t this exactly the reaction and the message that terrorists want?” 

“Sure,” Ritzheimer said. 

“So you’re playing into ISIS and al Qaeda hands,” Cooper said. “Do you feel good about that?” 

“I’m just doing what I have to do to make sure that my children have a good future,” Ritzheimer replied.

I have NO idea how attempting to incite a violent reaction is going to help this man protect his children.

And in fact it must not have, because this protest took place yesterday, and though there was no violence Ritzheimer has become so terrified from death threats that he claimed to have received that he has now gone into hiding. 

And once again I completely support the idea of exercising freedom of speech in this country, and challenging ALL religions, but this, much like the Pam Gellar event from before, is nothing more than a publicity stunt and an attempt to anger people into doing something violent in order to prove a point.

Here is how Hermant Mehta, the Friendly Atheist, describes his feelings: 

I don’t support this event. I hope you don’t either. Ritzheimer has no obligation to listen to me, but I can at least condemn his actions. There’s no higher principle at work here. If there was, he wouldn’t need to resort to these shock-jock tactics. The only thing he’ll accomplish is pissing off Muslims (and plenty of non-Muslims) without creating the conversation he claims this is really all about.

That's pretty much the page I am on as well. 

Of course we should not allow ourselves to be intimidated by threats of violence, but we should also not lower ourselves to trolling extremists in the hopes they will injure or kill somebody in order to attract media attention.

It is time to stop worrying about outside attacks from the religiously fanatical ISIS, and time to start worrying about the religious fanatics that are already here.

Courtesy of Alternet:  

The Islamic State has said, “Secular statists are destroying America,” and that “God is not finished with the U.S. yet.” When religious extremists make such proclamations we should take them at their word. Equally we should demand “moderate Muslim” voices to denounce such affronts to America’s secular values. 

The above paragraph is true except for one notable exception: the above proclamations are not attributed to Islamic extremism or the Islamic State. They’re respectively owned by the 2012 GOP nominee runner-up Rick Santorum, who provided the first quote, and potential 2016 GOP front-runner Ted Cruz, who gave the second - on day one of the 2014 Value Voters Summit. 

America, your religious extremists are already inside the “Homeland,” so what are we going to do about it? 

“Obama’s agenda is not based on the Bible,” Santorum said. “Iran is dangerous because it’s a theocracy,” warned Cruz. It doesn’t take a clinical psychologist to detect the cognitive dissonance that the combined statements display. 

Any American with even a smidgen of secular sensibility should be deeply troubled by the maniacal religious radicalization of the Republican Party’s most reliable and agitated voting bloc. While ISIS is a rag-tag bunch of tens of thousands of Sunni extremists, who get around the Arabian Desert on the back of Toyota pick-ups, the Values Voter Summit is an audition for those who wish to represent hundreds of millions of Americans, as they get around the continental U.S. in the back of Air Force One. 

We are not talking about a fringe minority of disgruntled religious extremists. We are talking about swaths of the electorate who wish to transform America’s secular democracy into a tyrannical theocracy, and if the 2000 general election taught us anything, it’s that America is but one low-turnout election away from electing a religious extremist who wishes to impose the biblical equivalent of Sharia law on gays, minorities, liberals, atheists, Muslims, academics, immigrants, and anyone else they deem undesirable.

Well great, now who is going to rock me to sleep tonight?

Lawrence O'Donnell takes on religious extremism.

This segment was actually broadcast on Wednesday but I could not fit it in yesterday with all of the breaking news. But that is okay because it is certainly just as relevant today as it would be on in other day.

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What an amazing young lady. And what an absolutely shameful, and cowardly way for these intolerant bastards to respond to the progress that will surely come their way eventually, regardless of how hard they fight it.

And Lawrence is right that the Christian Bible is JUST as violent and dangerous as the Qaran.  It is only because of the more progressive society which surrounds us that we do not have similar incidents in this country.

How do Christians wrestle back their religion from the hands of the Right Wing extremists?

Courtesy of The New Republic:

A 78-percent majority of Americans is Christian. Only about a third of them self-identify as evangelical, which is a very rough proxy for the Christian conservative minority that increasingly insists on being called, simply, “Christian.” Such totum pro parte synecdoche de-legitimizes mainline Protestantism, historically black Protestantism, and Catholicism, which account, combined, for most of the other two-thirds of all Christians. The de-legitimization is why Christian conservatives favor it. Mainstream news organizations like the New York Times, ever-fearful of being branded anti-religious, have allowed themselves to be bullied into accepting the Christian right’s implicit suggestion that the only true Christian is a Christian conservative member of an evangelical or fundamentalist congregation.

Now speaking from the vantage point of a non-religious political blogger this argument presents a rather interesting, and possibly insurmountable challenge.

How do I write about the damage that Right Wing extremists are doing to our country, using Christianity as a bludgeon, without attacking their weapon of choice as well?

As many of you have made VERY clear, you resent my attempts to reveal the inherent faults that are contained within the Bible, or to dismiss religious faith in and of itself as a potentially dangerous mindset which allows trusting people to be more easily manipulated.

And I get that, I do.  But I have to ask you, since I feel very strongly that public education, science, and the ability to love and live as we choose, is actively under attack by people who hide behind the shield of Christianity, what choice do I have?

Christian blogger Fred Clark further defines the problem:

This is a deliberate, intentional attempt by a politicized faction of American evangelicals to do two things: 1) redefine “Christian” to mean “white evangelical Protestant,” and 2) redefine “evangelical Protestant” to mean “conservative Republican.” 

This is inaccurate. And uncivil. 

It’s deliberately insulting to every Christian who is not a white evangelical Protestant and to every white evangelical Protestant who is not a conservative Republican. The latter group is not a small category. Millions of white evangelical Protestants voted for Barack Obama in 2008. 

Millions of them. Millions of us. More than the combined total populations of Alaska, Delaware, Montana, the Dakotas, Vermont, Wyoming, Rhode Island and West Virginia. But for the most part, the fundraisers and vote-herders of the religious right have succeeded in getting the media to play along with the weird idea that these millions of people do not exist.

You see my quandary.

I personally have NEVER had a problem with religion, or Christianity in particular, as long as it was not something which negatively impacted my life.

But when I witness people using it to vilify and attack ANYBODY who does not march in lockstep with THEIR version of religion, then what am I to do? Must I remain quiet for fear of injuring the feelings of those not actively involved with that extreme point of view?

I leave this as an open question to my many readers, ESPECIALLY those of you who have expressed frustration at my posts about religion.  What would you suggest as the best alternative to dealing ONLY with those who are using your religion as a both a shield and a weapon to strip away the rights of women, the non-religious, the gay community, and anybody else who is not part of their religious clique?

And let's make an attempt to keep this discussion positive shall we? Expressing frustration at one or both sides is allowed, but let's NOT simply devolve into name calling.

(H/T to Andrew Sullivan)

Should Homeland Security consider Right Wing extremists in this country security threats? Duh!

This from an excellent Huffington Post article written by Caroline Myss:

These Republicans have, in essence, raised a call to arms against their own countrymen and women during a time when this country continues to fight a war started by Republicans for bogus reasons, a fact which we must never forget. Representative Michele Bachman from Minnesota screamed to her constituents recently, "I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous ... Having a revolution every now and then is a good thing."

Representative Steve King yelled, "Let's beat that other side to a pulp! Let's take them out. Let's chase them down."

As for Sarah Palin, our Republican Court Fool, here's a sweet quote from her: "In Alaska, you know what we do with people like that? We hunt 'em down and shoot 'em between the eyes." Note that she is busy trying to backtrack on that remark and a few others like, "Don't retreat, reload", saying that she was actually referring to "voting 'em out at the polls". What? Since when is "shoot 'em between the eyes" a slogan for inspiring voting? Is this woman insane or what? Or does she think we are? Or is she coming very close to committing sedition? I remind you that this nation is still at war and inciting acts of violence against the government while the nation is at war borders on sedition. This may not be an anti-war protest in its purest sense but at its core, the ambition to weaken this government is crystal clear.

Further, do I sense a threat in these words or am I just reading between the lines? Nope, I think the word "shoot," means exactly what it says. Is she rallying the troops and suggesting that people plan the murders of their opponents? Is she supporting the assassination of Senators or Congressmen and women who are on the opposing team or, even the President? Exactly what, in her hysterical, arrogant lunacy, is she saying? Her website instructs her fan base: Don't retreat, reload.

Radical Right taking to vandalism to express their anger toward Health Care reform. Rachel Maddow has more.

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