The FBI on Thursday said Donny Eugene Mower, 37, has confessed to the September firebombing of a Planned Parenthood center in Madera, Calif. The FBI said Mower also was responsible for posting hostile signs at a Madera Islamic Center in late August.

The FBI was already investigating the Islamic Center case when a Molotov cocktail sailed through the window of Madera’s Planned Parenthood, injuring no one but causing enough damage to shut down the office for several days.

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Yesterday, in the opening statement of his hearings on the radicalization of American Muslims, U.S. Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) claimed that his political dog-and-pony show was not Islamophobic because “not one terror-related case in the last two years involved neo-Nazis” or other domestic groups.

Oh really, Congressman King? Are you quite sure about that?

In fact, precisely one day before King made his eyebrow-raising claim, law enforcement officials arrested a long-time neo-Nazi in what is undeniably a “terror-related case” — the attempted mass murder of up to 1,500 Martin Luther King Jr. Day marchers in Spokane, Wash. Kevin Harpham, a one-time member of the neo-Nazi National Alliance who ranted for years about race wars and similar matters, was charged in federal court with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and possessing an improvised explosive device. The bomb, reportedly laced with rat poison to make it more deadly, was discovered minutes before the Jan. 17 march was to start and defused by police experts at great personal risk.

But apparently Peter King, despite national publicity, didn’t hear about that. ( continue to full post… )

The Anchorage Daily News is reporting this morning that five people in the Fairbanks area were arrested yesterday on charges connected with a plot to kidnap or kill state troopers and a Fairbanks judge. They are accused of conspiring to commit murder, kidnapping, and arson, as well as weapons misconduct, hindering prosecution and tampering with evidence. One of those arrested, Francis “Schaeffer” Cox, 26, is the head of the Alaska Peacemakers Militia, which the Southern Poverty Law Center lists as an antigovernment “Patriot” group.

The four others arrested with Cox are Lonnie Vernon, Karen Vernon, Coleman Barney and Michael Anderson. The announcement of these arrests as well as the arrest on Wednesday of a white supremacist suspect in the attempted bombing of a Martin Luther King Day parade, are another reminder, in the wake of hearings held yesterday by Rep. Peter King that specifically focused on Islamic-inspired terrorism, that domestic terrorist groups can be just as dangerous.

Cox and his compatriots had allegedly already begun planning their activities, according to a statement released by the Alaska State Troopers. The troopers’ investigation showed that “extensive surveillance on troopers in the Fairbanks area had occurred, specifically on the locations of the homes for two Alaska state troopers.” The statement also said that, “Cox et. al. had acquired a large cache of weapons in order to carry out attacks against their targeted victims. Some of the weapons known to be in the cache are prohibited by state or federal law.” ( continue to full post… )

Kevin William Harpham, the alleged Martin Luther King Day bomber who was arrested yesterday, was deeply involved in the white supremacist movement and once fantasized about killing anti-racists.

The Army veteran posted his thoughts, in fact, more than 1,000 times on the racist and anti-Semitic internet forum Vanguard News Network (VNN) since 2004.

“I can’t wait till the day I snap,” Harpham wrote under the pseudonym “Joe Snuffy” in a 2006 message. Harpham was responding to a post about German anti-racists protesting white supremacists. The post claimed the police cared only about the anti-racists and “turned their loaded guns on the neo-Nazis.”

“Videos like that bring me closer to it every time I watch them,” Harpham wrote. “Fear of death is the only thing stopping me and it is a fear that is hard to get over if you can relate to that.”

Harpham also showed a deep interest in bombs. “Who was the person during WW2 that said something like ‘Those who say you can’t win a war by bombing have never tried,’” Harpham posted to VNN, also 2006. In a 2010 VNN discussion of  thorium, a slightly radioactive element sometimes used in nuclear reactors, Harpham mentioned “its uselessness in building bombs,” indicating some real knowledge of explosives. ( continue to full post… )

So who is the suspect accused of building a “weapon of mass destruction” and planting it along the route of a Martin Luther King Jr. Day unity parade route in Spokane, Wash.?

The emerging picture suggests 36-year-old Kevin William Harpham is a “lone wolf’’ with a military ordnance background and apparently increasingly extreme radical-right views that may have prompted the attempt to carry out a mass murder on the late civil rights leader’s birthday. He is also a man who has joined a neo-Nazi group, apparently posted to racial extremist websites and worried that the 9/11 attacks were actually a government conspiracy.

The domestic terrorism suspect faces the possibility of life in prison if convicted of the initial two charges he faces: attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and possession of an improvised explosive device. Other federal charges could come when a federal grand jury in Spokane reviews the case on March 22. ( continue to full post… )

Officials have just identified the suspect arrested in connection with the attempted Martin Luther King Jr. Day bombing in Spokane, Wash., as 36-year-old Kevin William Harpham. Harpham was charged federally with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and receiving and possessing an improvised explosive device.

Harpham was a member of the neo-Nazi National Alliance in late 2004. It was not known when Harpham joined or if he was still a member. The National Alliance was one of the most prominent hate groups in America for decades, but has fallen on hard times since the 2002 death of its founder, William Pierce. Pierce is the author of The Turner Diaries, a race war novel often referred to as the Bible of the radical right.

Our research indicates that Harpham was apparently in the military in 1996-97, when records suggest he was part of the 1st Battalion, 37th Field Artillery Regiment at Fort Lewis, Wash. The SPLC reported in 2006 that Fort Lewis was one of several military installations with a concentration of secret extremist members.

KXLY-TV reported earlier today that law enforcement officials were executing a search warrant at a home in Addy, where Harpham was said to live.

A significant break in the Martin Luther King Day backpack bomb investigation in Spokane occurred this morning when an FBI SWAT team executed a search warrant and reportedly made an arrest in the small northeastern Washington town of Addy.

FBI officials weren’t immediately available for comment, but indicated the name of the suspect would be forthcoming in a news release.

The case has been investigated as a case of domestic terrorism.

Addy is a community in Stevens County, in the northeastern corner of Washington state, bordering Canada.  The county has long been a hotbed of extremist and Christian Identity activity. ( continue to full post… )

Today, the Southern Poverty Law Center released a new report, “Attacking the Constitution: State Legislators for Legal Immigration and the Anti-Immigrant Movement.” It documents the radical beliefs of 12 leading members of a coalition called State Legislators for Legal Immigration (SLLI). The group is pushing harsh, anti-immigrant legislation across the country and announced in January a national campaign to attack the 14^th Amendment’s guarantee of citizenship for all children born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction of its laws.

SLLI, which has about 65 members in 40 states, was founded by Pennsylvania state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe in 2007. As the SPLC’s report documents, SLLI’s members embrace a raft of radical beliefs, including conspiracy theories about supposed government concentration camps, a coming one-world government and false claims that President Obama is a foreigner and Muslim. Members have described undocumented immigrants in vicious terms, as “invaders” or as a “poison.”

Metcalfe has said that immigrant parents “live the life of a criminal” and should have their children taken away. He has routinely demonized undocumented immigrants as criminals, despite studies that clearly show immigrants are on average much less criminal than native-born Americans. Metcalfe’s extremism is about more than immigration. He once denounced Pennsylvania’s Domestic Violence Awareness Month as part of the “homosexual agenda” because it included men as possible victims of domestic violence. He characterized military veterans concerned about climate change and foreign energy dependence as traitors promoting a “leftist agenda.” And, like others in the so-called “birther” movement, Metcalfe has cast doubt on Obama’s U.S. citizenship.

Other SLLI members have expressed similarly radical ideas. Charles Key, an Oklahoma legislator, has claimed the federal government had advance knowledge of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and engaged in a “cover-up.” Matt Shea, a Washington legislator, appeared on conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ radio show and expressed concerns about supposed concentration camps operated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Sally Kern, an Oklahoma legislator, told a newspaper that she opposed high-resolution driver’s license photos because she believed they were a sign of the end times. And Danny Verdin, a South Carolina state senator who described undocumented immigrants as a “poison” and a “malady” during a SLLI press conference, has compared the fight against undocumented immigrants to the Confederacy’s struggle against the Union. ( continue to full post… )

Some people seem to have great difficulty in understanding why U.S. Rep. Peter King’s hearings on radicalization of American Muslims, set to open this Thursday, are seen as so loathsome by so many. Let me try to explain.

Imagine, for starters, if another congressman — say, Keith Ellison of Minnesota, a Democrat and the first Muslim elected to Congress — decided to hold hearings on the Christian fundamentalist community and the radicalization of some of its members. After all, it is undeniably fundamentalists who have formed the bulk of the extremists who have burned or bombed hundreds of abortion clinics and murdered eight providers or their assistants. The vast majority of these people have been motivated, as most have said themselves, by their interpretations of Christianity.

Well, I think you can see where this is going. You wouldn’t have time to snap your fingers before outraged Americans, metaphorically speaking, surrounded the Capitol carrying pitchforks and torches, demanding the heads of their representatives. Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck, to mention just a couple of the far-right talking heads, would erupt before their Fox News audiences. After all, just think back to the self-righteous hullabaloo that broke out when a leaked 2009 Department of Homeland Security (DHS) report on the radical right suggested that hate groups were interested in recruiting returning veterans with military skills. Conservatives around the country went into outrage mode, shouting to the skies that the perfectly accurate report was calling all veterans potential Timothy McVeighs. The political right is the first to scream “demonization” when it feels it is being targeted.

There’s another very good reason why the hearings organized by King, a Republican from New York who chairs the Homeland Security Committee, amount to what an editorial in today’s New York Times called “Mr. King’s show trial.” Peter King does not come to the question of radical Islam with clean hands. ( continue to full post… )

COEUR D’ALENE, Idaho — The trial of former Aryan Nations attorney Edgar Steele was postponed and moved from North Idaho to Boise on Monday by a federal judge who earlier was steadfast in refusing additional delays.

Steele, 65, faces four federal charges in an alleged failed plot to hire a hit man to murder his wife, Cyndi Steele, and her mother last year.

On Friday, U.S. District Court Judge B. Linn Winmill refused a request from defense attorneys Robert T. McAllister and Gary Amendola to delay Steele’s trial for a third time. ( continue to full post… )