Mojo Nixon - Destroy All Lawyers

Jello Biafra & Mojo Nixon "Love Me, I'm a Liberal"

Mojo Nixon and Jello Biafra ~ Hamlet Chicken Plant Disaster

On September 3rd 1991 a fire broke out at a Chicken Processing Plant in Hamlet North Carolina. The owner had had all the emergency doors of the plant locked and barred to save a few dollars. 25 workers burned alive, and 49 were injured. The owner responsible for these deaths served less than 4 years in prison.

Mojo Nixon and Jello Biafra wrote this song about it, which is found on the Prairie Home Invasion Album.

Mojo Nixon-Debbie Gibson Is Pregnant with My Two-Headed Love Child

Mojo Nixon - Burn Down the Malls

Mojo Nixon - Take Me To Your Leader Otis Campbell

Mojo Nixon - Tie My Pecker to My Leg

Jello Biafra / Mojo Nixon - Are You Drinkin' With Me Jesus?

Mojo Nixon - Redneck Rampage

‘Read the stimulus’ advocate Dick Armey slammed for not bothering to read the stimulus.

THINK PROGRESS

Yesterday, the House Oversight and Government Reform committee held a hearing on the implementation of the Recovery Act, also known as the stimulus. Republican members invited former GOP Majority Leader Dick Armey, who now leads the corporate front group FreedomWorks, to testify as their expert witness. After listening to Armey argue at length about the merits of even having any government intervention in the economy, Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) asked him if he supported the unemployment compensation provisions of the bill. Armey said he might, but conceded that he had not read that portion of the bill. Van Hollen then extracted a confession that Armey had not even read the bill at all, even though he was appearing as an expert and repeatedly goes before the press to criticize the stimulus:

VAN HOLLEN: Let me ask you think. You keep saying ‘if there were,’ did you read the Economic Recovery bill?

ARMEY: No I didn’t. I had no reason to read it, I wasn’t voting on it.

VAN HOLLEN: You’re commenting on it an awful lot, both here and in the press, about the Economic Recovery bill. We ask members of Congress to read it when they vote on it and are considering it. You’ve said a lot about it, so I’m a little surprised that you have not read it. [...] It seems to me we owe it to people we are communicating with we have an understanding an read the information.

Watch it:

Ironically, as part of an effort to obstruct and derail the bill, Armey launched an online petition called “ReadTheStimulus.org.” In another bit of irony, although he postures as a fierce ideological opponent of the stimulus, Armey actually worked as a lobbyist to help businesses gain from the stimulus. According to disclosures, he was paid to lobby on behalf of Cape Wind Associates and the Medicines Company on the stimulus. His son, Scott Armey, who runs his own lobbying shop, has also worked with businesses to gain stimulus funds.

Filter-Can't You Trip Like I Do

Filter - Hey Man Nice Shot

Media Matters Speaks With Rupert Murdoch

Fox News' year in apologies

http://mediamatters.org/items/200911190043

On November 19, co-host Jane Skinner apologized for Happening Now "mistakenly" airing a fake video of Sarah Palin's book tour "crowds." This was not the first time Fox News has apologized for airing fake videos and false information.

Fox News presents year-old Palin footage as new Palin book tour crowd. As Think Progress first noted, on the November 18 edition of Happening Now, guest co-host Gregg Jarrett used old footage -- which he said was "just coming in to us" -- of a McCain-Palin rally from last year to illustrate how Sarah Palin is "continuing to draw huge crowds" during her book tour. The following day, Skinner apologized for "mistakenly" airing the fake crowd video.

Stewart blasts Hannity for using old video footage to inflate Bachmann rally attendance. During the November 10 edition of Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Stewart blasted Fox News host Sean Hannity for attempting to inflate the crowd size of Rep. Michele Bachmann's (R-MN) Fox News-fueled GOP rally against health care reform by using footage of the crowd at the better-attended 9-12 rally. On the November 11 edition of his program, Hannity said he "screwed up" and apologized for airing "incorrect video" of 9-12 protests while discussing the Bachmann rally.

Fox News' Garrett apologizes for fake HBO-Obama story -- which Fox News repeated days later. During the November 4 edition of America's Newsroom, guest co-host Martha MacCallum started the fake story that President Obama watched an HBO special about himself instead of the November 3 election returns. The fake story was then picked up by Rush Limbaugh, among others, who claimed that "[i]f a documentary could get anal poisoning, this one could." On the November 4 edition of Studio B with Shepard Smith, White House correspondent Major Garrett apologized for mishearing press secretary Robert Gibbs and passing on the erroneous information. Despite the Fox News correction, on the November 8 edition of Fox News Watch, Fox News' weekly media analysis program, host Jon Scott repeated the fake story, claiming that Obama was "watching the HBO documentary. ... Now, maybe that's the one thing that could pull him away from -- from election returns."

Kilmeade: Americans don't have "pure genes" like Swedes because "we keep marrying other species and other ethnics." As Gawker noted, on the July 8 edition of Fox & Friends, co-host Brian Kilmeade said that Americans don't have "pure genes" like Swedes because "we keep marrying other species and other ethnics." Kilmeade apologized for his "inappropriate" remarks on July 20.

Democrat Mark Sanford. During the June 24 edition of Fox News' Live Desk, while covering a press conference of embattled South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, Fox News ran on-screen text identifying him as a Democrat:

On Live Desk the next day, co-host Trace Gallagher made "a correction for something we put up on the screen during our coverage during the governor's press conference yesterday. We briefly identified Governor Sanford as a Democrat. He is, of course, a Republican. And we apologize for getting that wrong."

Fox News presents deceptively cropped 6-month-old Biden clip as new. On the March 16 edition of Live Desk, MacCallum claimed that "after weeks of economic doom and gloom, the Obama administration is now singing a slightly different tune. Take a look at what was said in recent interviews this weekend." Live Desk then aired clips of administration officials purportedly giving an optimistic view of the economy, which included video of Vice President Joe Biden stating, "The fundamentals of the economy are strong." However, Biden did not make those remarks during an "interview" that weekend; he made them at a September 2008 campaign event in which he criticized statements by Sen. John McCain. MacCallum apologized the next day, stating: "When we get something wrong, we admit it. We did so yesterday, and for that we apologize."

Fox News Watch's Scott claims "[w]e don't have any idea" what Biden said to AFL-CIO, but transcript was available. On March 9, Scott claimed on Fox News Watch that Biden's appearance at an AFL-CIO executive council meeting was "closed to the press," adding, "We don't have any idea what he said there." In fact, the White House released a transcript of Biden's AFL-CIO speech, and "a pool of print reporters" reportedly covered the speech at the request of the White House. On March 23, Scott said:

SCOTT: Before we go, last News Watch, we took Vice President Biden to task to giving speech to a labor organization that had been closed to the press. I mentioned that we, the media, had no idea what he said. Well, guess what? Turns out the vice president's office heard the howls of protest and did let a few print reporters hear those remarks. The office even put a transcript on the Web a day later. The veil of secrecy had been lifted, but we at News Watch weren't aware.

Sorry, Mr. Vice President, we do know what you said.

Fox passes off GOP press release as its own research -- typo and all. During the February 10 edition of Happening Now, Scott purported to "take a look back" at how the economic recovery plan "grew, and grew, and grew." In doing so, Scott referenced seven dates, as on-screen graphics cited various news sources from those time periods -- all of which came directly from a Senate Republican Communications Center press release. A Fox News on-screen graphic even reproduced a typo contained in the Republican press release.

The following day, Scott apologized -- for running the typo. Scott's apology was criticized by Washington Post media critic and CNN host Howard Kurtz, who said: "We sometimes jab at the pundits for using talking points, but in the case of Fox News anchor Jon Scott, it was literally true this week. ... You should be apologizing for using partisan propaganda from the GOP without telling your viewers where it came from. Talk about missing the point."

Palin: Crack Down On 'Iraq' To Prevent Nuclear Iran

We Are All Jihadists!

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT): Republicans are about to launch a "holy war" to derail health care reform.

Fox News displays old campaign footage to claim Palin is getting ‘huge crowds’ at her book signings.

THINK PROGRESS

This afternoon, Fox News host Gregg Jarrett proudly announced that Sarah Palin is “continuing to draw huge crowds while she’s promoting her brand new book. Take a look at — these are some of the pictures just coming into us.” But the pictures that the network chose to display on-air appeared to be old file footage of Palin rallies from the 2008 presidential campaign. Individuals in the crowd are seen holding McCain/Palin signs, and others are holding pom-poms and cheering wildly. “There’s a crowd of folks,” an enthused Jarrett observed, referring to the old footage. Watch it:

The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart recently caught Fox News’ Sean Hannity displaying crowd shots from a rally earlier this year to claim that a recent GOP health care protest drew a larger audience than it actually did. Hannity later acknowledged that he “screwed up.”

Update - Crooks and Liars' John Amato writes that he is filing an FCC complaint against Fox News for its misleading segment.

Update - Media Matters points out that one of the videos is from Nov. 1, 2008.

Obama Home Teleprompter Malfunctions

Officials say the President's home teleprompter is simply a tool to make sure pillow talk with Michelle or conversations with his Mother-In-Law go smoothly.

SPLC to O’Reilly: You Lose Dobbs Bet

Southern Policy Law Center

To: Bill O’Reilly
The O’Reilly Factor
Fox News Network

Dear Bill,

You lost the bet. Time to pay up!

When I appeared on your show in July, you were so certain that the Southern Poverty Law Center’s call for CNN to fire Lou Dobbs was a waste of time that you bet $10,000 (with the proceeds going to Habitat for Humanity) that it wouldn’t happen.

“CNN’s never going to fire him – you know that,” you said.

I told you that I disagreed, because I wasn’t as cynical as you. I believed that if enough people spoke out – and they did – that CNN would do the right thing.

I expect you will argue that Lou didn’t get fired – that he got fed up and quit the network he had been with for three decades.

But as a litigator, I’d like to present Exhibit A: Dobbs’ $8 million severance package, which was reported today by the New York Post. I think you’ll agree that Mr. Murdoch’s Post would never report such a thing were it not, indeed, a fact.

And would CNN fork over $8 million – enough money to pay for 13 miles of electric border fence – to an employee who simply wanted to walk away from his multimillion-dollar contract because he couldn’t constrain his opinions on a news show?

I doubt it!

Maybe your fall-back position is that it wasn’t a real bet. I don’t know. But I think that if you’ll stop spinning for a moment, you’ll agree that in the court of public opinion, you lose. I know it hurts deeply to be wrong. (Although Lou won’t admit it, it happens to the best of us.) You can be assured that your loss will be a big win for a family in need of housing.

CNN did the right thing. Now it’s your turn!

Sincerely yours,

J. Richard Cohen
President, Southern Poverty Law Center

The Second Wave - Evidence Grows of Far-Right Militia Resurgence

Southern Poverty Law Center - Larry Keller

	Antigovernment Rhetoric Spills into the Mainstream Read More In Pensacola, Fla., retired FBI agent Ted Gunderson tells a gathering of antigovernment "Patriots" that the federal government has set up 1,000 internment camps across the country and is storing 30,000 guillotines and a half-million caskets in Atlanta. They're there for the day the government finally declares martial law and moves in to round up or kill American dissenters, he says. "They're going to keep track of all of us, folks," Gunderson warns. Outside Atlanta, a so-called "American Grand Jury" issues an "indictment" of Barack Obama for fraud and treason because, the panel concludes, he wasn't born in the United States and is illegally occupying the office of president. Other sham "grand juries" around the country follow suit. The Oklahoma City federal building after the 1995 bombing. And on the site in Lexington, Mass., where the opening shots of the Revolutionary War were fired in 1775, members of Oath Keepers, a newly formed group of law enforcement officers, military men and veterans, "muster" on April 19 to reaffirm their pledge to defend the U.S. Constitution. "We're in perilous times … perhaps far more perilous than in 1775," says the man administering the oath. April 19 is the anniversary not only of the battle of Lexington Green, but also of the 1993 conflagration at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, and the lethal bombing two years later of the Oklahoma City federal building — seminal events in the lore of the extreme right, in particular the antigovernment Patriot movement. Almost 10 years after it seemed to disappear from American life, there are unmistakable signs of a revival of what in the 1990s was commonly called the militia movement. From Idaho to New Jersey and Michigan to Florida, men in khaki and camouflage are back in the woods, gathering to practice the paramilitary skills they believe will be needed to fend off the socialistic troops of the "New World Order." One big difference from the militia movement of the 1990s is that the face of the federal government — the enemy that almost all parts of the extreme right see as the primary threat to freedom — is now black. And the fact that the president is an African American has injected a strong racial element into even those parts of the radical right, like the militias, that in the past were not primarily motivated by race hate. Contributing to the racial animus have been fears on the far right about the consequences of Latino immigration. Militia rhetoric is being heard widely once more, often from a second generation of ideologues, and conspiracy theories are being energetically revived or invented anew. "Paper terrorism" — the use of property liens, bogus legal documents and "citizens' grand juries" to attack enemies and, sometimes, reap illegal fortunes — is again proliferating, to the point where the government has set up special efforts to rein in so-called "tax defiers" and to track threats against judges. What's more, Patriot fears about the government are being amplified by a loud new group of ostensibly mainstream media commentators and politicians. The 1993 burning of the Branch Davidian compound in Texas. It's not 1996 all over again, or 1997 or 1998. Although there has been a remarkable rash of domestic terrorist incidents since Obama's election in November, it has not reached the level of criminal violence, attempted terrorist attacks and white-hot language that marked the militia movement at its peak. But militia training events, huge numbers of which are now viewable on YouTube videos, are spreading. One federal agency estimates that 50 new militia training groups have sprung up in less than two years. Sales of guns and ammunition have skyrocketed amid fears of new gun control laws, much as they did in the 1990s. The situation has many authorities worried. Militiamen, white supremacists, anti-Semites, nativists, tax protesters and a range of other activists of the radical right are cross-pollinating and may even be coalescing. In the words of a February report from law enforcement officials in Missouri, a variety of factors have combined recently to create "a lush environment for militia activity." "You're seeing the bubbling [of antigovernment sentiment] right now," says Bart McEntire, who has infiltrated racist hate groups and now is the supervisory special agent for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Roanoke, Va. "You see people buying into what they're saying. It's primed to grow. The only thing you don't have to set it on fire is a Waco or Ruby Ridge." Another federal law enforcement official knowledgeable about militia groups agrees. He asked not to be identified because he is not authorized to speak publicly about them. "They're not at the level we saw in '94-'95," he says. "But this is the most significant growth we've seen in 10 to 12 years. All it's lacking is a spark. I think it's only a matter of time before you see threats and violence." Shots, Plots and 'Sovereigns' In fact, threats and violence from the radical right already are accelerating (see last section of this report, a list of 75 domestic terrorist plots and rampages since 1995). In recent months, men with antigovernment, racist, anti-Semitic or pro-militia views have allegedly committed a series of high-profile murders — including the killings of six law enforcement officers since April. Most of these recent murders and plots seem to have been at least partially prompted by Obama's election. One man "very upset" with the election of America's first black president was building a radioactive "dirty bomb"; another, a Marine, was planning to assassinate Obama, as were two racist skinheads in Tennessee; still another angry at the election and said to be interested in joining a militia killed two sheriff's deputies in Florida. A man in Pittsburgh who feared Jews and gun confiscations murdered three police officers. Near Boston, a white man angered by the alleged "genocide" of his race shot to death two African immigrants and intended to murder as many Jews as possible. An 88-year-old neo-Nazi killed a guard at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. And an abortion physician in Kansas was murdered by a man steeped in the ideology of the "sovereign citizens" movement. So-called sovereign citizens are people who subscribe to an ideology, originated by the anti-Semitic Posse Comitatus of the 1980s, that claims that whites are a higher kind of citizen — subject only to "common law," not the dictates of the government — while blacks are mere "14th Amendment citizens" who must obey their government masters. Although not all sovereigns subscribe to or even know about the theory's racist basis, most contend that they do not have to pay taxes, are not subject to most laws, and are not citizens of the United States. Authorities and anecdotal evidence suggest that sovereign citizens — who, along with tax protesters and militia members, form the larger Patriot movement — may make up the most dramatically reenergized sector of the radical right. In February, the FBI launched a national operation targeting white supremacists and "militia/sovereign citizen extremist groups" after noting an upsurge in such organizations, The Wall Street Journal reported. The aim is to gather intelligence about "this emerging threat," according to an FBI memo cited by the newspaper. Increasingly, sovereign citizens are claiming they aren't subject to income taxes — so much so that the Department of Justice last year kicked off a National Tax Defier Initiative to deal with the volume of cases. At the same time, more and more seem to be engaging in "paper terrorism," even though more than 30 states passed or strengthened laws outlawing the filing of unjustified property liens and simulating legal process (by setting up pseudo-legal "common law courts" and "citizens' grand juries") in response to sovereign activity in the 1990s. A Michigan man whose company allegedly doubled as the headquarters of a militia group, for example, was arrested in May on charges that he placed bogus liens on property owned by courthouse officials and police officers to harass them and ruin their credit. In March, authorities raided a Las Vegas printing firm where meetings of the "Sovereign People's Court for the United States" were conducted in a mock courtroom. Seminars allegedly were taught there on how to use phony documents and other illegal means to pay off creditors. Four people were arrested on money-laundering, tax and weapons charges. Due to a spike in "inappropriate communications," including many from sovereign citizens, the U.S. Marshals Service has opened a clearinghouse in suburban Washington, D.C., for assessing risks to court personnel. The incidents include telephone and written threats against federal judges and prosecutors, as well as bomb threats and biochemical incidents. In fiscal 2008, there were 1,278 threats and harassing communications — more than double the number of six years earlier. The number of such incidents is on pace to increase again in fiscal 2009. Sovereign citizens account for a small percentage of the cases, but theirs are more complex and generally require more resources, says Michael Prout, assistant director of judicial security for the marshals. "They are resourceful groups," he adds. Some sovereign citizen attempts to skirt the law have been farcical. An Arkansas jury needed only seven minutes in April to convict Richard Bauer, 70, of robbing a bank. Bauer had argued that the government took his money several times, leaving him with almost nothing. "I'm a constitutionalist," he insisted, adding that "every single act was justifiable." A month earlier, a Pennsylvania man charged with drunken driving told court officials that they lacked jurisdiction over him because he was a "sovereign man." Then he changed his mind and pleaded guilty. In Nevada, a sovereign citizen — perhaps a Dr. Seuss fan —used the peculiar punctuation of names that is favored by the movement; his name, he declared, was "I am: Sam." But few of the cases are that amusing. In February, a New York man who once declared himself a "sovereign citizen" of the "Republic of New York" and said that he enjoyed studying "the organic Constitution and the Bill of Rights" allegedly shot and killed four people. His murder case was pending at press time. Swearing at the Government Oath Keepers, the military and police organization that was formed earlier this year and held its April muster on Lexington Green, may be a particularly worrisome example of the Patriot revival. Members vow to fulfill the oaths to the Constitution that they swore while in the military or law enforcement. "Our oath is to the Constitution, not to the politicians, and we will not obey unconstitutional (and thus illegal) and immoral orders," the group says. Oath Keepers lists 10 orders its members won't obey, including two that reference U.S. concentration camps. That same pugnacious attitude was on display after conservatives attacked an April report from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that suggested a resurgence of radical right-wing activity was under way. "We will not fear our government; they will fear us," one man, who appeared to be on active duty in the Army, said in an angry video sent to the Oath Keepers blog. In another video at the site, a man who said he was a former Army paratrooper in Afghanistan and Iraq described President Obama as "an enemy of the state," adding, "I would rather die than be a slave to my government." The Oath Keepers site soon began hawking T-shirts with slogans like "I'm a Right Wing Extremist and Damn Proud of It!" In April, Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes — a Yale Law School graduate and former aide to U.S. Rep. Ron Paul (a Texas Republican and hard-line libertarian) — worried about a coming dictatorship. "We know that if the day should come where a full-blown dictatorship would come, or tyranny … it can only happen if those men, our brothers in arms, go along and comply with unconstitutional, unlawful orders," Rhodes told conspiracy-minded radio host Alex Jones. "Imagine if we focus on the police and military. Game over for the New World Order." He's not the first to think so. In the 1990s, retired Phoenix cop and conspiracy enthusiast Jack McLamb created an outfit called Police Against the New World Order and produced a 75-page document entitled Operation Vampire Killer 2000: American Police Action Plan for Stopping World Government Rule. It's not known how large Oath Keepers is. But there is some evidence beyond the group's mere existence to suggest that today's Patriots are again making inroads into law enforcement — the leak of the DHS report, along with those of a couple of similar law enforcement reports, was likely the work of a sworn officer. Rhodes claims to know a federal officer leaked the DHS report, and says Oath Keepers is "hearing from more and more federal officers all the time." The group does seem to be on the radar of federal law enforcement officers. In May, a member complained on the group's website of a visit to his farm by FBI agents who asked him, he said, about training he provides in firearms, survival skills and the like. One Oath Keeper is longtime militia hero Richard Mack, a former sheriff of a rural Arizona county who collaborated with white supremacist Randy Weaver on a book and who, along with others, won a U.S. Supreme Court decision that weakened the Brady Bill gun control law in the 1990s. "The greatest threat we face today is not terrorists; it is our federal government," Mack says on his website. "One of the best and easiest solutions is to depend on local officials, especially the sheriff, to stand against federal intervention and federal criminality." Mack's views echo those of the Posse Comitatus, which believed that sheriffs are the highest law enforcement authorities in America. "I pray for the day that a sheriff in this country will arrest an IRS agent for trespassing or attempting to victimize citizens in that particular sheriff's county," Mack said in a video he made for Oath Keepers. Why the Return? Why are militias and the larger Patriot movement making a comeback? The original militia movement took off in the mid-1990s, with the first large militias appearing in 1994 and growth continuing over the next several years. The movement reflected widespread anger over what was seen as the meddling of a relatively liberal administration in Washington — from gun control to environmental laws to a variety of other federal mandates. But what really ignited the movement was the bloodshed in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and Waco, Texas. In 1992, during a standoff between white supremacist Randy Weaver's family in Idaho and federal agents — a confrontation that began with Weaver's sale of an illegal weapon — Weaver's son and wife were killed, along with a U.S. marshal. The following year, some 80 members of the gun-loving Branch Davidian cult died in a fire that ended a 52-day standoff with federal agents in Texas. Thousands of Americans saw these events as proof that the federal government was prepared to murder its own citizens in order to enforce a kind of liberal orthodoxy — a so-called "New World Order" (NWO) that reflected the economic and political globalization that militia backers felt was robbing their country of its independence and unique culture. The movement was animated by a welter of conspiracy theories, the bulk of them decrying NWO plots that were said to be aimed at imposing socialism on the United States, sending patriotic Americans to prison camps, destroying farmers with secret weather machines, and so on. Most militia enthusiasts also blamed the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing on the government — it was a "false flag" operation carried out by the Clinton Administration, they contended, and designed to soften up the American public to accept draconian anti-terrorism legislation. But the movement of the '90s ultimately wound down, almost petering out after the turn of the millennium. That was for a variety of reasons, including the arrests of many militia backers in terrorist plots, the jailing of hundreds of others on weapons violations, and the violence the movement continued to produce even after 168 people, including 19 children, were murdered in Oklahoma City by men steeped in the ideology of both militias and racist hate groups. The failure of any of the many dire Patriot predictions or conspiracy theories to come true also hurt the movement, as did the 2000 election of a conservative president, which had the effect of defusing militia backers' anger. Apocalyptic warnings from militia leaders about an expected "Y2K" collapse on Jan. 1, 2000, also turned out to be entirely without merit, becoming a kind of final nail in the coffin of the movement. Now, it seems, they are back. Every month, there are militia trainings announced around the country — and untold numbers that are not publicized. The Internet teems with training videos, information about meetings and rallies, far-fetched rumors and conspiracy theories. Joining 1990s militia stalwarts like Gunderson and Mack is a new generation of activists, as exemplified in the case of Edward Koernke. Koernke's father, Mark Koernke, was a prominent '90s militia propagandist known as "Mark from Michigan." The elder Koernke served nearly six years in prison on charges that included assaulting police. Today, his son hosts an Internet radio show devoted to all things militia. The current resurgence has several apparent causes. In the largest sense, it is again a response to real societal stresses and strains, from the seemingly inevitable rise of multiculturalism to the faltering economy to another liberal administration, this one headed by a black man. Similar factors have driven the number of race-based hate groups, as distinct from Patriot groups, from 602 in 2000 to 926 in 2008, according to research by the Southern Poverty Law Center. "This frequently happens when elections favor the political left and the society is seen as moving toward greater social equality or away from traditional societal hierarchies," Chip Berlet, a long-time analyst of the radical right at Political Research Associates, said in a June newsletter. "In this scenario, it is easier for right-wing demagogues to successfully demonize liberals," immigrants and others. In fact, the anti-immigration movement is both fueling and helping to racialize the antigovernment Patriot resurgence. More and more, members of nativist groups like the Minutemen are adopting core militia ideas and fears (see next section of this report). And they have contributed their own conspiracy theories — about the secret Mexican "Plan de Aztlan" to reconquer the American Southwest, and another involving the secretly arranged merger of the United States, Mexico and Canada into a "North American Union" — to the long list of nefarious plots already identified by the Patriot movement. Far-right fears of conspiracies have come from other quarters, as well, most notably from the so-called "birthers" who have filed a series of lawsuits making the claim that Obama is not a U.S. citizen. These spurious claims first gained traction when prominent extremists like writer Jerome Corsi, politician Alan Keyes and Watergate felon and radio show host G. Gordon Liddy questioned the validity of the president's birth certificate. Many Patriots have also adopted conspiracy theories about secret government involvement in events like the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the crash of TWA Flight 800 in 1996. "The current political environment is awash with seemingly absurd but nonetheless influential conspiracy theories, hyperbolic claims and demonized targets," Berlet concluded. "And this creates a milieu where violence is a likely outcome." Going Mainstream A remarkable aspect of the current antigovernment movement is the extent to which it has gained support from elected officials and mainstream media outlets. Lawmakers complaining about the intrusiveness of the federal government have introduced 10th Amendment resolutions (reasserting that those powers not granted to the federal government remain with the states) in about three dozen states. In Texas, Gov. Rick Perry raised the prospect of secession several months after Obama's inauguration — a notion first brought up there in the '90s by the militia-like Republic of Texas. U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) said she feared that the president was planning "reeducation camps for young people," while U.S. Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.), evoking memories of the discredited communist-hunter Sen. Joseph McCarthy, warned of 17 "socialists" in Congress. Fox News host Glenn Beck, who has called Obama a fascist, a Nazi and a Marxist, even re-floated militia conspiracy theories of the 1990s alleging a secret network of government-run concentration camps. The original movement also had its mainstream backers, but they were largely confined to talk radio; today, Beck is just one of the well-known cable TV news personalities to air fictitious conspiracies and other unlikely Patriot ideas. CNN's Lou Dobbs has treated the so-called Aztlan conspiracy as a bona fide concern and questioned the validity of Obama's birth certificate despite his own network's definitive debunking of that claim. On MSNBC, commentator Pat Buchanan suggested recently that white Americans are now suffering "exactly what was done to black folks." On FOX News, regular contributor Dick Morris said, "Those crazies in Montana who say, 'We're going to kill ATF agents because the U.N.'s going to take over' — well, they're beginning to have a case." At the same time, players like the National Rifle Association, which in the 1990s publicly attacked federal law enforcement agents as "jackbooted thugs," are back at it. Two months before the election last fall, firearms manufacturers joined forces to promote NRA membership in a national campaign ominously dubbed "Prepare for the Storm in 2008." Gun shows, too, are back as major venues for militia-like ideology. In a video produced in April by Max Blumenthal, senior writer at the online news site The Daily Beast, one man interviewed at a show said, "If Obama tries to get rid of our guns, it's just a step away from trying to take away everything else." Another said show attendees were "preparing for the worst." Patriot ideology also has crept into the anti-tax "tea parties" that were staged by conservatives around the country in April and July. In addition to protesting government spending and taxation, some demonstrators called for the sovereignty of the states, abolition of the Federal Reserve (a long-time bogeyman of the radical right), and an end to "socialism" in Washington. At the Jacksonville, Fla., July tea party, some protesters carried signs that compared President Obama to Adolf Hitler. Once again, fearful Patriots are scurrying to prepare for what they see as the coming societal meltdown, stockpiling not only weaponry but food and an array of other items. Newsletter publisher Lee Bellinger, for instance, peddles Social Chaos Survival Guide: Smart, Savvy Precautions to Make You Self-Reliant in These Dangerous Times and warns of "impending national social chaos." The book, he says, is "for people who want to stand their ground without attracting a whole lot of attention — either from the authorities" or "mobs of desperate fellow citizens." The recent Department of Homeland Security report also pointed to the role of the Internet in the current movement: "Unlike the earlier period, the advent of the Internet and other information-age technologies since the 1990s has given domestic extremists greater access to information related to bomb-making, weapons training and tactics, as well as targeting of individuals, organizations and facilities, potentially making … the consequences of their violence more severe." Whither the Militia Movement? Evidence that angry Americans are arming themselves for action is growing. In March, for instance, a Spokane, Wash., man pleaded guilty to illegally possessing two grenade launchers, 54 grenades, 37 machine guns, eight silencers and a variety of explosives in a storage unit. The man had an "End the Fed" bumper sticker on his vehicle. In May, another Washington resident was charged with keeping an illegal cache of weapons that included a machine gun, four silencers, and two guns made by a local gunsmith and inscribed with "Christian warrior" and "NObama." In Nebraska, a jury convicted Allison Klanecky for possession of unregistered grenade components. Prosecutors said that a search of Klanecky's barn and an underground bunker turned up dozens of containers of explosive powder, fuses and other components that could be used to make up to 93 grenades, plus an unregistered 12-gauge military shotgun called a "Streetsweeper." Klanecky was involved in an end-times group called The Prophecy Club that sells conspiracy books and DVDs on everything from the New World Order to globalism and the 9/11 attacks. A good illustration of antigovernment Patriot movement paranoia was the reaction to a National Guard exercise planned for April in the little town of Arcadia, Iowa. The guardsmen had intended to conduct a four-day mock search for an arms dealer that would include patrolling the town's streets, distributing photos of the fictional bad guy and knocking on doors of residents who agreed to participate in the drill. Alex Jones, the radio host and conspiracy theorist, got wind of the plans and interviewed a National Guard official, setting off an avalanche of angry calls and visits to his website from people who feared the exercise was really about imposing a dictatorship or martial law on the country. "Tell them that ANY violation of your rights will result in a 'Live Fire Exercise,'" one such person wrote on Jones' Infowars.com website. "If they come, come loaded for war!" That incident showed how quickly militia enthusiasts now mobilize, thanks to the Internet. The National Guard rapidly scaled back its planned exercise, although it denied that the deluge of complaints had anything to do with its decision. The sounds of violence are growing louder. The Idaho Citizens Constitutional Militia recently posted an opening for a "field sniper." Around the same time, an Ohio Militia member, face hidden by a bandana and voice distorted electronically, posted a video to YouTube. "People need to wake up and start buying some of these," he said as he displayed a semi-automatic rifle. "Things are real bad, and they're going to get a lot worse."

Frank Schaeffer warns against fundamentalist christians wanting to harm President Obama

Wash Times Editor: I Was Forced To Attend A Moon Church Mass Wedding

TPM

Washington Times editorial page editor Richard Miniter is filing a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against the paper today, alleging discrimination based on age, disability, and religion -- being forced to attend a Unification Church mass wedding -- and he will ask the government to enjoin the Times' assets, his lawyer tells TPM.

The development adds to an already daunting mess of problems at the newspaper, whose top executives were fired last week, and whose executive editor resigned.

"The state of affairs at the Washington Times, to put it mildly, is in disarray," Larry Klayman, Miniter's attorney, tells TPM. "What we're seeking to do is to freeze everything right now." Klayman, whose firm is based in Washington and Florida, is the founder of conservative legal group Judicial Watch.

The Unification Church of Rev. Sun Myung Moon, whose son Preston controls the paper, is known for its mass weddings, in which Rev. Moon is said to often personally make matches based on photographs of brides and grooms.........more ....

Stewart On 9/11 Trials: Forget The Terrorists -- The Media's Who We Have To Worry About

TPM

On Monday night, the Daily Show argued that a civilian trial in New York City for self-proclaimed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is a bad idea -- not necessarily for some of the reasons offered by conservatives -- but because the media will definitely go way overboard.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Law & Order: KSM
www.thedailyshow.com
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Sarah Palin Lies To Oprah

THINK PROGRESS

On the afternoon of Oct. 2, 2008 — the day of the vice presidential debate last year — Politico’s Jonathan Martin broke the news that Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) presidential campaign was “pulling out of Michigan.” The next day, vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin told Fox News’ Carl Cameron that she disagreed with the decision. “I fired a quick e-mail and said, oh, come on. Do we have to call it there?” said Palin. “I want to get back to Michigan and I want to try.”

But in her interview with Oprah Winfrey, which aired yesterday, Palin claimed that she only “went rogue” on the Michigan message because she “didn’t know we pulled out of Michigan”:

WINFREY: Didn’t several times they say to you when actually you mentioned, when you were talking about pulling out of Michigan and you said I wished we’d stayed in Michigan. Weren’t you told then, Sarah just stay on script?

PALIN: Right, told after wards and that, that was always puzzling to me because if I were to respond to a reporter’s questions very candidly, honestly, for instance, they say, “what do you think about the campaign pulling out of Michigan” and I think, “darn I wish we weren’t. Every vote matters, I can’t wait to get back to Michigan” and then told afterwards that, “oh, you screwed up. You went rogue on us Sarah, you’re not supposed to be.” And my reminder to the campaign was, I didn’t know we pulled out of Michigan. My entire VP team, we didn’t know that we had pulled out. I’m sorry, I apologize, but speaking candidly to a reporter.

Watch it:

Clearly, if Palin told Cameron that she had sent an e-mail to the McCain high command disagreeing with the move, she knew that the decision had been made. Additionally, in their reported book on Sarah Palin, former Fox News embed Shushannah Walshe and CBS News digital journalist Scott Conroy reveal that Palin knew she had made a mistake in her interview with Cameron:

The e-mail that Palin sent was, in fact, essentially how she described it to Cameron. She wrote to her traveling staff and top McCain advisers, “If there’s any time, Todd and I would love a quick return to Michigan-we’d tour the plants, etc. . . . If it does McC any good. I know you have a plan, but I hate to see us leave Michigan. We’ll do whatever we had [sic] to do there to give it a 2nd effort.”

A senior aide replied, “Michigan is out of reach unless something drastic happens. We must win oh and hopefully pa.”

Palin replied that she “got it,” but her subsequent interview with Cameron had shown that she hadn’t. She acknowledged as much in a post-interview e-mail to senior staff, writing, “Oops-I mentioned something about that to Carl Cameron and it’s now recorded that I’d love to give Michigan the ol’ college try.” Later in the day, she tried once more. “It’s a cheap 4hr drive from WI. I’ll pay for the gas,” she wrote.

This isn’t the first claim that Palin has made in her book and during her promotional tour that has been contradicted by campaign e-mails. In her book, Palin wrote that “from the beginning” she liked the idea of appearing on Saturday Night Live. But in an e-mail thread from the campaign that was provided to the Huffington Post, Palin said she was “not thrilled” about the idea of going on the show because “these folks are whack.”

In an interview with Walshe and Conroy, The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder noted that their book chronicles “fairly persuasively, a large number of what seem to be fairly egregious distortions” by Palin. “Sarah Palin is quick to cast aside people who cross her in even minor ways, and her unwillingness to tolerate much dissent often leads to an infallibility syndrome,” replied the authors, who later added that she has a “tendency to wildly exaggerate the truth.”

Update - McCain is disputing an allegation made by Palin that the campaign stuck her with "a $50,000 legal bill to pay for the cost of vetting her as a potential vice presidential candidate." McCain said the bill was actually “over the troopergate” issue.

Update - Shannyn Moore points out that Palin's claim to Oprah that she didn't consult with her children before agreeing to join the McCain campaign contradicts what she told Sean Hannity last year. This isn't this first time her narrative of the family's knowledge of her decision has been contradicted.

Update - Walshe and Conroy have more on Palin's contradiction of her 2008 Hannity interview.

Poll: Americans Don't Like Sarah Palin

A new ABC/Washington Post poll finds that Americans still do not like Sarah Palin, who is kicking off her Going Rogue book tour with a taped interview airing today on the Oprah Winfrey show.

The poll finds that a majority of Americans, 52% of respondents, have an unfavorable opinion of her, compared to only 43% favorable.

In addition, respondents were asked this question: "Regardless of whether or not you'd vote for her, do you think Palin is or is not qualified to serve as president?" The numbers: qualified 38%, not qualified 60%.

In addition, 53% say they would definitely not vote for her. Only 9% would definitely vote for her, and 37% would consider it (those people are likely Republicans and GOP-leaners who want to see all the options).

Lies, Ex-Cons, And 'Nasty' Bathrooms: Behind The Scenes At A Top GOP Outreach Firm

TPM

A top Republican political fund-raising and outreach firm gives convicted felons access to political donors' credit-card information, according to three former employees.

Minnesota-based FLS Connect uses low-wage workers to make fund-raising calls for a bevy of prominent GOP clients. And many of those workers -- including those responsible for processing credit-card transactions -- have felony convictions, the former employees said.

In response, FLS Connect co-founder Jeff Larson, a Karl Rove protege, told TPMmuckraker that the firm would undergo a review from an outside, independent auditor "to ensure the highest standard of confidence in our processes."

Last month, the founder of a different Republican outreach firm, Bonner & Associates, was hauled before Congress after his company sent forged letters to lawmakers on a key legislative issue. Nothing like that has come to light at FLS, but in interviews with TPMmuckraker, the former employees described a company whose business practices might come as a shock to the well-heeled Republican donors from whom it solicits money. FLS fundraisers, encouraged by supervisors to cut corners in pursuit of donations, routinely mislead potential contributors, say the former employees. And many workers in the company's Phoenix office are ex-cons, who are paid not much more than minimum wage, lack benefits, and work in squalid conditions.

The claim that ex-felons have access to credit-card information was first made by former FLS employee Brian Jones in an interview last week with the website Politics in Minnesota (PIM). Larson denied the charge to PIM.

But in interviews with TPMmuckraker, two other recent employees, Alicia Baca and David Childs, backed Jones up. And Jones himself, a former felon who was recently fired from FLS's Phoenix office, told us he stood by his claim. "He is just a liar," Jones, 37, said of Larson.

Baca, Childs, and Jones explained that when a donor agrees to contribute money by credit card, they're told that they'll be transferred to a supervisor to handle the transaction. But in fact, the three said, they're transferred to another FLS employee in the same room. That person has gone through only a cursory screening process, and in no way acts as a supervisor to the caller making the fundraising pitch. Indeed, they said, he generally earns less money than the fundraising caller...................more

Interloper tricks Tea Party audience into an anti-European immigrant chant of ‘Columbus go home!’

THINK PROGRESS

On Saturday, a few dozen anti-immigration activists gathered on the steps of the Minnesota State Capitol for a Tea Party, part of the nationwide effort by Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC). But somehow, one of the counter-protesters, a “concerned citizen from Minneapolis” named “Robert Erickson,” manged to get on the speaking list. His address started with the standard anti-immigrant rhetoric, but then revealed that he was talking about European immigrants. By this time, however, the crowd was in a frenzy and joined him in his chants of “Columbus go home!” and “Europeans out!”:

Let’s send these European immigrants back where they came from! I don’t care if they are Polish, Irish, English, Italian, or Norwegian! European immigrants are responsible for the most violent and heinous crimes in the history of the world, including genocide and slavery! Its time to restore the sovereignty of people native to this land! I want more workplace raids, starting with the big banks downtown.

Christopher Day at DailyKos notes, “The Tea-Baggers seem pretty clueless, and for the most part don’t even seem to realize they have been punk’d.”