In Wake Of Shootings, Conservatives Rush To Defend Disparagement Of DHS Report On Right-Wing Extremism
In Wake Of Shootings, Conservatives Rush To Defend Disparagement Of DHS Report On Right-Wing Extremism
Following yesterday’s tragic shooting at the Holocaust Museum — reportedly carried out by white supremacist James von Brunn — two Fox News personalities, Shepard Smith and Catherine Herridge, suggested that critics of the Department of Homeland Security’s report on right-wing extremism should re-think their criticism. ” “The right went absolutely bonkers,” said Smith, adding that DHS was “warning us for a reason.”
But later on Fox, New York Post columnist Ralph Peters attacked Smith and Herridge for claiming that the shooting “validated” the DHS report. “It had nothing to do with the Department of Homeland Security report,” declared Peters. Watch it:
Though some conservatives have concluded that the recent string of right-wing violence has “vindicated” the DHS report, many others agree with Peters. Michelle Malkin, who led the charge against the DHS report, approvingly linked to a milblogger that called Smith and Herridge “pathetic” for reconsidering the report. Malkin’s Hot Air colleague, Ed Morrissey, defends the criticism of the report by claiming that it didn’t “mention anti-semitism at all.”
But as Huffington Post’s Sam Stein points out, the DHS report “warned specifically about an upswing of anti-Semitic behavior.” “Anti-Semitic extremists attribute these losses to a deliberate conspiracy conducted by a cabal of Jewish ‘financial elites,’” the report read. “These ‘accusatory’ tactics are employed to draw new recruits into right-wing extremist groups and further radicalize those already subscribing to extremist beliefs.”
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Conservatives RUSH to Mr. Bouncy.
June 11th, 2009 at 10:27 amSince conservatives are doing their best to spin von Brunn as a leftist liberal progressive, of course that makes the DHS report on right-wing extremism totally irrelevent to von Brunn. Duh.
June 11th, 2009 at 10:31 am‘America does not phucking torture!’-Shep Smith /Fox News / 4/09
Sheps going to end up on MSNBC if he keeps being honest. That DHS report was not only prescient, it should have served as warning to some of these events.
The fact we still have wingnuts in denial isn’t surprising. Perhaps ‘denial’ is the name of the alternative reality place they claim to live.
June 11th, 2009 at 10:34 amDon’t they realize that this is going to look to the average media consumer like they’re actually embracing antisemitism? “We volunteer to be included in the group the DHS report was talking about” may have gone over when people had forgotten just how bad those groups are, but I think it’s pretty fresh in everybody’s memory now. Volunteering to be included in that set is political suicide. Maybe they’ve been doing the “never apologize never change your mind” thing for so long that they’ve completely forgotten how to responsibly distance themselves from things.
June 11th, 2009 at 10:36 amThe moment they admit these incidents validate the report they disparaged, they admit culpability in the recent increase in Right-wing violence.
Because of this, they’ll never do it.
June 11th, 2009 at 10:36 amAmericasBack Says: I find it truly amazing how these (so called) people can defend the undefendable.
Public Service announcement: indefensible
I know you’d do the same for me. :D
June 11th, 2009 at 10:37 amWow. Just when you think thses guys couldn’t sink any lower, they best themselves again. How can you defend any of this?
June 11th, 2009 at 10:42 amZimzone Says:
Sheps going to end up on MSNBC if he keeps being honest. That DHS report was not only prescient, it should have served as warning to some of these events.
I don’t see Shep going to MSNBC. CNN, yes.
God, I’m talking about news channel anchors like they were players on my fantasy sports team. Where did I go wrong?
June 11th, 2009 at 10:44 amForgive me for reposting something I just posted on another thread, but this seemed relevant.
from the DHS Report on Rightwing Extremism:
Rightwing extremist chatter on the Internet continues to focus on the economy, the perceived loss of U.S. jobs in the manufacturing and construction sectors, and home foreclosures. Anti-Semitic extremists attribute these losses to a deliberate conspiracy conducted by a cabal of Jewish “financial elites.” These “accusatory” tactics are employed to draw new recruits into rightwing extremist groups and further radicalize those already subscribing to extremist beliefs.
Suck on that, Pee.
June 11th, 2009 at 10:44 amAmericasBack Says:
Isn’t suicide what the neo-cons have been trying to commit all along?
I’d say it’s the difference between sucking on a cigarrette and sucking on a gun barrel.
In before C4P posts his crazy talk in here that Al-Qaeda and Nazis are butt-buddies so that means Nazis are left wingers.
June 11th, 2009 at 10:45 amWhile watching Morning Joe I came away with this question, why was this story barely mentioned and I mean barley. While all the other networks had in-depth coverage on this story, Morning Joe apparently didn’t find this story important enough to cover.
Now folks, ask yourselves this question, if it had been someone from the Middle East who had committed this monstrous act; The Morning Joe crew would have been all over it and at the sometime interjecting that Cheney was right; they would have rushed to bring his daughter on air to ask her for opinion; but apparently White Supremacist murdering a guard and attempting to murder others is barley worth reporting.
June 11th, 2009 at 10:45 amI guess when Joe Scarborough said he was worried we would get attack under President Obama he didn’t expect it would be from his neck of the woods.
No surprise Malkin would claim the DHS didn’t mention anti-semtism, her followers wouldn’t bother to read the report anyway…if our trolls are any indication of the quality of intellect, it’s no wonder…
June 11th, 2009 at 10:46 amThis reminds me of a presidential daily breifing from August 6, 2001 titled:
Bin Laden Determined To Attack inside the U.S.
Condi Rice and George W. Bush couldn’t figure out what that meant either. And afterward, they were sure it had nothing to do with 9/11.
Right-wingers aren’t very good at connecting dots.
June 11th, 2009 at 10:49 amI’ve noticed there’s been some leaning on Jonah Goldberg’s book about how Nazis were ‘in fact’ left-wing in the general defensive action by the Right.
That book is entirely predicated on the fact that NAZI is a contraction of ‘National Socialist’ which of course had nothing to do with left-wing socialism.
(If the NAZIs were left-wing, and the US fought against the Nazis, that would make the US right-wing by Manichean default. And that would make the Communist Russians right-wing by default too. And the British.)
Its just another example of the political Right insisting that THEY are the norm, and that only the left is extreme.
June 11th, 2009 at 10:51 amNazis are to the left of the Bush/Chaney Republican Network. heh!
June 11th, 2009 at 10:52 amThe right is really scrambling on this one. They know that they are defending the indefensible. They know that Americans are thinking, “isn’t this just what the DHS report warned us about”.
June 11th, 2009 at 10:52 amADAY@16, Joe is too busy peddling his book and selling Starbucks coffee than talk about news.
June 11th, 2009 at 10:53 amI’ve noticed that the rieghtwinger, Jim David Adkisson, who shot and killed several church members during a youth play at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee, was inspired to do so by Bernard Goldbergs book; “100 People Who Are Screwing Up America”.
June 11th, 2009 at 10:54 amI knew I should have opened that “Guns and Bible Outlet” here in the south a few years ago.
I’d be a “high-roller” by now if I had.
June 11th, 2009 at 10:56 amPurple State Says: God, I’m talking about news channel anchors like they were players on my fantasy sports team. Where did I go wrong?
lol, it’s not you; it’s that damn ‘liberal media’!
June 11th, 2009 at 10:57 amBut we do have an enemy, and Fox news is its mouthpiece. The enemy is the corporate fascists. Not the “terrists” as they pretend.
June 11th, 2009 at 10:59 amMalkin’s Hot Air colleague, Ed Morrissey, defends the criticism of the report by claiming that it didn’t “mention anti-semitism at all.”
Morrissey now has a correction up on his post, excusing his fu(k-up by explaining that He only “did a search on “semitism” and not “Semitic” and he should have done both. He acknowledges “sloppy work”.
How about reading the damn thing? It’s only 10 pages long, and not very dense. Unlike Hot Air contributors, apparently.
June 11th, 2009 at 10:59 amYou forgot the beer. What good is a gun and a bible without a beer?
June 11th, 2009 at 10:59 amThey act like the DHS report saying that right wingers are ALL extremists.
What an odd thing….
June 11th, 2009 at 11:01 amConservatives are eating shyte now! They need to apologize to Janet Napolitano and the DHS. The rest of their chatter is meaningless.
June 11th, 2009 at 11:01 amralph@30, Remember when Malkin slammed Asian Americans? It seems that when these people step over to the Republican side, they lose all empathy. My stepfather is a Religiuos Rightie and he is half Korean. I don’t get it.
June 11th, 2009 at 11:02 amYou forgot the beer. What good is a gun and a bible without a beer?
And it would offer ONLY drive-thru service.
June 11th, 2009 at 11:05 amP.D. Says:
——————————————————————————–
ADAY@16, Joe is too busy peddling his book and selling Starbucks coffee than talk about news.
***********************
You are so right, I never seen someone work so hard to get people to read his book; and apparently he can’t do it on his own; he has to take Mika with him on every book signing tour because he is afraid no one would want to come if it was just him. How pathetic is that.
This is what happens when you spend so much of your time acting like an A** Hole.
June 11th, 2009 at 11:05 amThe truth hurts and the report touched a nerve…Obama wasn’t so far off the mark when he said
…their actions are proving him correct…
June 11th, 2009 at 11:08 amralph the wonder locust Says:
How about reading the damn thing? It’s only 10 pages long, and not very dense. Unlike Hot Air contributors, apparently.
Those old enough to remember Maynard G Krebs can recall his pained response to the word “work”. Wingers are the same with the word “read”.
June 11th, 2009 at 11:12 amConservatives constantly confide with criminals.
HELP SAVE AMERICA.
KILL THE GOP.
June 11th, 2009 at 11:12 amhormiga brava chavez Says:
Conservatives … apologize
June 11th, 2009 at 11:01 am
______________
AH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!
HAAA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!
Ah ha ha. Ha ha ha.
AAAAAAAAAAH HA HA HA HA HA HA!
Oh, man. That was a good one.
Tee hee!
June 11th, 2009 at 11:13 am“Hey, man – I didn’t tell those kids to go into town and kill people, man. We were just enjoying life, living in the desert and getting high, man. I love music and love, man – I didn’t kill anybody, and I didn’t tell anyone they should either, man – we just want to be free, and love each other, man….”
June 11th, 2009 at 11:15 amIm convinced that certain brain types, no matter what, will find a reason to lean toward cynicism, bitterness and hate. Take racism away and they would be bitter and cynical and hate something else.
June 11th, 2009 at 11:16 amIm convinced that certain brain types, no matter what, will find a reason to lean toward cynicism, bitterness and hate. Take racism away and they would be bitter and cynical and hate something else.
June 11th, 2009 at 11:16 am42, likely namejack, please dont post that stuff.
June 11th, 2009 at 11:18 amThere is a conservative mindset: Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition talks about several indicators such as the need for social dominace, intolerance of ambiguity, among others, which contribute to such a mindset…very interesting reading…
June 11th, 2009 at 11:21 amWe don’t care if they are bitter and cynical. We just want them to stop hurting other people.
June 11th, 2009 at 11:23 am29 SKdeAnt Says:
You are correct SkydeAnt. The Republican Party is just the political wing of a fascist Corporatist organization. They are very well organized, and very well financed.
We face an uphill battle.
June 11th, 2009 at 11:33 amAB@#51: It’s Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, 116 U.S. 394 (1886). The SCOTUS held that corporations were “persons” within the meaning of the Due Process clause of the 14th Amd.
June 11th, 2009 at 11:42 amYou definitely do not want to use the word “kill” to describe what we are going to do to the GOP. While the GOP is certainly on its way to extinction, it’s better not to use language that could be interpreted to incite the use of violence.
For instance, The GOP is being destroyed, demolished, devastated, demoralized, disenfranchised and disseminated, but definitely not killed.
Most progressives and the vast majority of the rest of the world wants to see the GOP Disbanded, but to use the metaphor of “killing” the GOP is politically incorrect in the light of the killings being done by radical members of the fascist Republican Party.
June 11th, 2009 at 11:42 amLevi the Dungbeetle Says:
The GOP is being destroyed, demolished, devastated, demoralized, disenfranchised and disseminated . . . .
And the best part about this, Levi? The GOP is doing much of this to themselves…
That said, I’m not sure I want to see the GOP disbanded; I’m finding that the GOP in its current incarnation is being quite useful at pointing out to an otherwise unenlightened public the lunacy, failed policies, and outright danger that right wingers bring to our society.
June 11th, 2009 at 11:54 amEd Morrissey is a liar.
June 11th, 2009 at 11:56 amThis. More moderate elements of the Republican Party would do well to, at the very least, consider switching parties. As one family member put it, ‘there is no such thing as a liberal Republican.’
June 11th, 2009 at 12:01 pmMemo to these Republican creeps:
The security of our Country and the safety of her citizens is paramount!
Screw your image and the parsing of who said what when!
June 11th, 2009 at 12:03 pmThis is what Michelle Malkin still claims at her website:
June 11th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
They’re only distancing themselves because (1) the connection is TRUE and (2) they are uncomfortable with the TRUTH.
June 11th, 2009 at 12:07 pmI have one of the cute little signs hanging in the laundry area that says “Normal is just a setting on your washing machine.”
It appears the Republicans are stuck in the Spin cycle.
June 11th, 2009 at 12:08 pmWhite Conservatives, get used to the fact that you are being criminally profiled. Liberals have been so, going back to Joe McCarthy. Welcome to the party.
To borrow from Malkin: Boo freakin hoo.
June 11th, 2009 at 12:09 pmAll the Righty talkers should, henceforth, have their first names replaced with “Charlie”, or their last names with “Manson”, to honor their ideological progenitor.
June 11th, 2009 at 12:16 pmAmericasBack Says:
Xisithrus Says:
42, likely namejack, please dont post that stuff.
Yeah man, this just puts us in the same camp those haters are in. Don’t be like that – you are better than that.
The GOP can be killed when no one chooses to be a member of it any more. I don’t see a problem here. I’m all about slaughtering some ideologies. And it’s important that we remain aware of the difference.
June 11th, 2009 at 12:24 pmThe piss-soaked Cons are turning themselves inside out in their desperate contortion act — trying to prove they can never be wrong. And even if they are wrong, they spin like dervishes to try to show how they really right after all.
It’s really rather pitiful.
June 11th, 2009 at 12:39 pmZooey Says:
The piss-soaked Cons are turning themselves inside out in their desperate contortion act — trying to prove they can never be wrong.
As long as they keep doing that, they’re going to keep wandering farther and farther out into the wilderness. The only appropriate way to distance yourself from something like this would be to admit that the DHS report did have a point. Maybe Shep Smith should be the “leading voice” of the Republican party; we might have something to worry about if he was.
June 11th, 2009 at 1:31 pmIsn’t it amazing how some people could be so deluded?
June 11th, 2009 at 1:40 pmMatthias Says:
This is what Michelle Malkin still claims at her website:
Shooting at National Holocaust Museum Updated: Museum guard dies; shooter wasn’t “left” or “right,” just plain loony
By Michelle Malkin • June 10, 2009 01:32 PM
Oh, the shooter was neither? Really, Michelle? Then how come you, Kathy Shaidle, and Redstate’s Erick Erickson are painting him as a lefty loon?
You’re full of it, Malkin.
June 11th, 2009 at 3:30 pmThis wackjob sounds a lot like Jeramiah Wright, no?
June 11th, 2009 at 4:32 pmThis guy didn’t like jews/christians kinda like in Iran
June 11th, 2009 at 4:36 pmThis is a woman who went ballistic and called for a boycott over a scarf. I’m all for affirmative action for the mentally ill, but is journalism an appropriate venue? She should be working in a puzzle factory.
June 11th, 2009 at 6:42 pmfrances Says:
This guy didn’t like jews/christians kinda like in Iran
Oh, I bet he liked Christians just fine. He only hates arabs slightly less than jews, as opposed to evengelical Christians, who hate arabs only slightly more than jews. Those who would keep Israel and its neighbors locked in a bloody war forever are no friend to either.
Iranian hardliners are right wing there. He was right wing. You are right wing.
Us left wingers want nothing to do with any of you.
Also, you don’t really know what’s going on in Iran lately, do you?
June 11th, 2009 at 7:27 pmfrances Says:
This wackjob sounds a lot like Jeramiah Wright, no?
Hardly.
June 11th, 2009 at 8:11 pmfrances Says:
This wackjob sounds a lot like Jeramiah Wright, no?
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
No but YOU sound like an idiot
June 11th, 2009 at 8:31 pmRemember when Malkin slammed Asian Americans?
You know, this just floors me! Malkin is a 2nd generation Filipina, if I’m not mistaken.
Exactly where does she think that Asian-Americans have gone wrong? Does she think that her ethnic heritage give her a special insight as to the special privileges that they have gotten?
June 15th, 2009 at 12:46 pm