Hatewatch Tweets
Hatewatch is managed by the staff of the Intelligence Report, an investigative magazine published by the Alabama-based civil rights group Southern Poverty Law Center.
Polarized Election Season Marked by Extremist Candidates
It’s well known that in recent years, this country has seen its electoral politics polarized to an extent that has only rarely been paralleled in American history. But that polarization in many cases goes far beyond anything resembling mainstream discourse, extending to men and women who are linked to hate groups and racial, ethnic, religious, anti-gay and antigovernment extremism, or who promote extremist propaganda. Their baseless claims typically include demonizing propaganda about certain minority groups, or conspiracy theories that have the same demonizing subtext. What follows is a look at 15 political candidates, including Democrats, Republicans, independents and members of extremist political parties, who are running for office this fall or ran earlier in the year. Research on these candidates was carried out by the SPLC Task Force on Hate in the Public Sphere.
Virgil Goode Jr. (Va.)
Office sought: President of the United States
Goode got his political start in Virginia as a conservative Democrat. First elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1996, he switched to independent in 2000 and then Republican in 2002. He lost his seat in 2008 by just over 700 votes. In November 2010, Goode joined the executive committee of the Constitution Party, after serving as a member of the party’s larger national committee. Formed in 1991 as the U.S. Taxpayers Party by hard-line conservative and Christian Right backer Howard Phillips, the Constitution Party’s planks include opposition to hate crimes legislation; opposition to the so-called “New World Order,” a much-feared global government said to be imminent; support for the repeal of the Voting Rights Act; and support for “well regulated militias” at the state level and unorganized militias at the community and county levels. During his years in Congress, Goode also developed a reputation for his hard-line stance on immigration. In 2006, Goode claimed, in the wake of U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison’s (D-Minn.) using the Koran to take his oath of office, that if Americans didn’t wake up to the Goode point of view on immigration, “there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran.” In February 2011, he spoke on a panel at the Conservative Political Action Committee organized by Youth for Western Civilization, a now-defunct student group with ties to racist groups, calling for an end to all illegal immigration and most legal immigration, which, he warned darkly, will eventually lead to socialism. Goode also promises to defend Americans from the North American Union, a non-existent entity that conspiracy theorists claim the U.S., Canada and Mexico are secretly planning to form.
Merlin Miller (Tenn.)
Office sought: President of the United States
Miller is an independent filmmaker who is running on the white nationalist American Third Position (A3P) ticket. (The party’s chairman, William Daniel Johnson, once proposed a constitutional amendment to deport any U.S. citizen with an “ascertainable trace of Negro blood.”) In his 2012 book, co-authored with A3P board member Adrian Krieg, Miller states that “A3P stands to protect traditional White American interests, as no other political party has shown interest in doing.” Miller has also written pieces for the Holocaust-denying Barnes Review, founded by notorious anti-Semite Willis Carto, and The Occidental Observer, founded by anti-Semitic California State University psychology professor Kevin MacDonald. (The Observer focuses on white identity and white interests.) In 2011, Miller wrote an article in the Barnes Review about Walt Disney, described by Miller as a “Christian Patriot and anti-Communist” who, Miller says, built a major motion picture studio that was not controlled by Jews. In September 2012, Miller — who has addressed meetings of the white nationalist Council of Conservative Citizens, a group that once described black people as a “retrograde species of humanity” — was interviewed by Press TV in Iran, where he was attending an international film festival. During that interview, he claimed that charges against him of racism stemmed from his criticism of Zionism and the Jewish-controlled media. He also stated that he believes 9/11 was a Mossad-orchestrated event carried out with “considerable inside help.”
Mark Clayton (D-Tenn.)
Office sought: U.S. Senate
Clayton won the Democratic primary for a Tennessee Senate seat in August 2012, after competing in a field of seven other candidates. Clayton, an anti-gay fringe conspiracy theorist who served a stint in the Army reserve and has worked a variety of odd jobs, won 26% of the vote despite raising no money. The Tennessee Democratic Party disavowed Clayton the day after the primary, but his name will remain on the ballot opposing GOP Sen. Bob Corker. Clayton’s views align more closely with those of the John Birch Society, which once called President Dwight D. Eisenhower a c ommunist, than the Democratic Party — though some of his ideas might be a little much even for JBS. He believes the government is building concentration camps to imprison Americans and that elites in the U.S., Mexico, and Canada are conspiring to form a “North American Union” (NAU) merging the three nations — both conspiracy theories common in the antigovernment “Patriot” movement. When he ran for a Senate seat in 2008, Clayton accused Google of censoring his campaign website on behalf of the Chinese government. That website, which has since been taken down, thanked supporters for helping defend Tennessee against the NAU, national ID cards and “radical homosexual lobbying groups who want to get in the Boy Scouts.” Clayton also claimed that Austrian-born California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was planning to amend the Constitution so he could run for president and “fulfill Hitler’s superman scenario.” Clayton’s current site is tamer, though he wants to eliminate “secret national ID cards” from Tennessee drivers’ licenses and to stop the government from mandating that “transexual[s] and homosexuals” grab children in “stranger-danger zones” in airports.
Ted Cruz (R-Texas)
Office sought: U.S. Senate
Tea Party-backed Cruz is running as the GOP candidate for the Senate seat vacated by Kay Bailey Hutchinson. The Harvard-educated attorney, a former solicitor general of Texas and law clerk for Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist, claims that the U.N.’s 1992 non-binding resolution and general guidelines for sustainability and ending poverty is a plot led by liberal billionaire George Soros to “abolish” unsustainable environments, including golf courses and grazing pastures. He co-authored a proposal that would open a way for states to nullify federal laws. Cruz thinks the imposition of Shariah Islamic law in the U.S. is “an enormous problem” (it’s not even possible under the Constitution, let alone a big problem). In his first campaign ad in the GOP primary, he encouraged people to vote for him because he once fought to ensure the execution of an undocumented immigrant in a murder case. He’s tough on LGBT people, too. At the 2011 Values Voter Summit, hosted by the gay-bashing Family Research Council, which the Southern Poverty Law Center lists as a hate group for its defamatory and false propaganda, Cruz railed against the “gay rights agenda” and warned about new threats to “religious liberty.”
Michele Bachmann (R-Minn., incumbent)
Office sought: U.S. House of Representatives (6th District)
Since her election to Congress in 2006, Bachmann has become better known for her controversial statements than for her legislation. A staunch Christian evangelical influenced by the writings of Christian Dominionists like Francis Schaeffer, she is also known for conspiracy-laden claims about things like vaccines (they cause children to become retarded) and people like Muslims (Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s aide Huma Abedin is part of the Muslim Brotherhood). She claims that President Obama is somehow responsible for the swine flu outbreak in 2009. She also has said that if LGBT people get rights, everybody else will lose theirs, adding that LGBT people are “target[ing] your children.” Bachmann announced that she wouldn’t fill out her 2010 census forms completely because data from it is shared with the FBI and other groups. As proof, she claimed that census data was used by the Roosevelt administration to round up Japanese Americans in World War II (it wasn’t).
U.S. Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C., incumbent)
Office sought: U.S. House of Representatives (3rd District)
Originally a Democrat, Jones switched to the Republican Party in 1994 and has won every election in his district handily since then. He has moderate views on some issues – he has sided with Democrats in the past to raise the minimum wage, for example, and is known as anti-war — but on others, like immigration, he is much further to the right. He introduced the Illegal Alien Crime Reporting Act of 2011, which would have required federal agencies to report on crimes committed by undocumented workers, earning him accolades from hard-line nativist groups like the FIRE Coalition. Another key player in the U.S. anti-immigrant network, NumbersUSA, gave Jones one of its top 10 scores for his stands on immigration enforcement. Jones, a strong supporter of Arizona’s draconian S.B. 1070 anti-immigrant legislation, has also co-sponsored legislation to end the citizenship of children born in the U.S. to parents who are not citizens, a right guaranteed by the 14th Amendment. But he probably attracted the most attention when he was a guest in September 2012 on the Memphis-based radio talk show “Political Cesspool,” which is hosted by white nationalists James Edwards and Eddie Miller. Jones went on the show to talk about legislation he has co-authored that accuses President Obama of impeachable offenses regarding events in Libya. Jones later said he didn’t understand the political leanings of the show’s hosts, who have had a parade of white supremacists, neo-Nazis, Holocaust deniers and others on the extreme political right as guests, despite the fact that the show’s plain-spoken mission statement is, “We represent a philosophy that is pro-White.”
U.S. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa, incumbent)
Office sought: U.S. House of Representatives (5th District)
King has been in Iowa politics for more than 15 years now. He served as a state senator from 1996-2002 and, when a new congressional district was created in 2002, he ran for and was elected to the U.S. Congress. King has supported anti-Muslim conspiracy theories and expressed support for racial profiling in law enforcement, claiming that it’s not discriminatory. He has spoken at events with Tom Tancredo, the immigrant-bashing former Colorado congressman, and ardently defended nativist Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio. In 2010, he opined that U.S. immigration policy should be like picking the best dogs out of a litter. Two years later, he backed U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann (see above) in her baseless claim that State Department official Huma Abedin was an operative of the Muslim Brotherhood, saying Abedin’s family was “deeply entrenched” in the organization. When Obama was running for president in 2008, King said that because Obama’s middle name is Hussein, if he were elected “the al-Qaida, and the radical Islamists and their supporters will be dancing in the streets.” Also in 2012, at the Conservative Political Action Conference, the premier annual conference for conservatives, King spoke at a panel sponsored by the nativist group ProEnglish that dealt with the purported evils of multiculturalism and how it weakens American identity. King was in interesting company: Bob Vandevoort from Chicago, who once led the white nationalist group Chicagoland Friends of the American Renaissance, a magazine whose editor has said that black people are incapable of sustaining civilization; and Peter Brimelow, founder of the racist website VDARE, which is named after Virginia Dare, the first English (read: white) child born in America. King spoke about his bill to make English the official language of the U.S. and said that Brimelow, who seeks a whiter United States, “wrote eloquently about the balkanization of America.”
U.S. Rep. Allen West (R-Fla., incumbent)
Office sought: U.S. House of Representatives (18th District)
Backed by the Tea Party, the anti-Muslim and anti-gay West has made a name for himself with controversial statements and actions. He first ran for office in 2008 (he was not elected) after retiring from the U.S. military in 2004 as a lieutenant colonel. Prior to his retirement, he was fined $5,000 and relieved of his command without a court martial in connection with his interrogation of an Iraqi police officer. West was unrepentant and was supported by various far-right groups, including David Horowitz’s Muslim-bashing, online FrontPage Magazine, which named him 2003 “Man of the Year.” In 2007, West wrote monthly columns for Pam Geller’s anti-Muslim hate blog, Atlas Shrugs, while he was in Afghanistan doing military contracting. Finally elected to Congress in 2010, he attempted to hire Joyce Kaufman, an immigrant-bashing radio host, as his chief-of-staff. But Kaufman resigned amidst a major controversy generated by her nativist comments. During his two years in Congress, West has claimed that women who support Planned Parenthood are “neutering American men”; said that the Congressional Progressive Caucus is made up of secret members of the Communist Party; described people with pro-Obama bumper stickers as a threat to the gene pool; and demanded that President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, all top Democrats, “get the hell out” of America.
Harry Lyon (D-Ala.)
Office sought: Chief Justice, Alabama Supreme Court (ejected)
Lyon was running for chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court but was removed from the ballot in August 2012 by the state Democratic Party for “increasingly erratic behavior” and statements he made regarding LGBT people and his opponent, who he had claimed engaged in “devil worship.” Lyon was also quoted in the Montgomery Advertiser suggesting that it might be a good idea to publicly execute a few undocumented immigrants as a warning to the rest. He posted anti-gay statements on his Facebook page, including the claim that “only sick and perverted persons believe in homosexuality or lesbianism, though there are a lot of them.” Inflammatory statements aren’t his only problem. Lyon has been suspended by the Alabama Bar Association twice and reprimanded once for violation of ethical principles. The Democratic Party also pulled him off the ballot once before; in 1994, he was removed from the gubernatorial race for violating party rules. The irony is that, although the Democratic Party replaced Lyon as its chief justice candidate with a local circuit judge, the much-favored Republican candidate, Roy Moore, is himself marked by history as an extremist. Moore won election as chief justice earlier, starting his term in 2001, and soon drew attention with an opinion that said, citing the Bible, that the state could impose penalties up to and including execution to protect children from gay people. Moore later sneaked a two-ton Ten Commandments monument into the Supreme Court building. After he disobeyed a federal court’s order to remove the monument in 2002, he was stripped of his judgeship by the Alabama Court of the Judiciary. He is now trying to reclaim that seat.
Harry Bertram (W.V.)
Office sought: West Virginia House of Delegates
Bertram is trying once again for the state House of Delegates, after three previously unsuccessful campaigns and a losing bid for governor in 2011. He is running as a candidate of the American Third Position (A3P), a political party originally founded by racist skinheads in southern California in 2009 whose goals include deporting immigrants and placing the U.S. under white rule. The group’s mission statement claims that the U.S. government discriminates against white Americans and warns that whites will soon become a minority. In 2010, the group’s chairman, William Daniel Johnson, told the white nationalist “Political Cesspool” radio show that the foundation of the party is the “racial nationalist movement.” Nevertheless, Bertram dismisses the idea that the A3P is a racist party, insisting instead that it is merely “nationalist.” That’s a noteworthy claim, given that Bertram is listed as a “senior moderator” on WhiteNewsNow, a website run by Jamie Kelso, a longtime racist activist and former member of the neo-Nazi National Alliance. In addition, during his run for governor, Bertram released a television campaign ad in which he called himself “the voice for white American issues.” A3P chief Johnson’s proposed radio ad for Bertram — the text of which included, racist websites reported, “Vote Harry Bertram for Governor because we must secure a future for White America and our children” — was rejected by the West Virginia station he approached.
Daniel Johnson (Mich.)
Office Sought: Michigan House of Representatives
William Daniel Johnson is a longtime white supremacist running under a name he does not normally use — dropping his first name in favor of his middle name —on the ticket of a party other than the racist one he leads. In California, where he lived recently, Johnson was known as the chairman of the white supremacist American Third Position (A3P; see also above profiles of Merlin Miller and Harry Bertram) and the person who once called for the permanent deportation of all American citizens with an “ascertainable trace of Negro blood.” But in Michigan, he is running on the ticket of the Natural Law Party, not an obvious choice given that party’s planks of seeking to reduce racial prejudice and revitalizing inner cities via a strategy that includes using transcendental meditation to relieve social stress. Johnson makes no overt references to his A3P affiliation on his campaign website, but clicking the Facebook or Twitter links there will take you to the A3P pages for each. He does say that he seeks to preserve the environment, help businesses to provide a living wage, and protect civil liberties – particularly of white European Americans. He also wants to promote eugenic policies, meaning policies that favor “good” genes over “bad” ones in human reproduction. Calling his campaign phone line produces a recorded voice saying that “the white race is dying out in America and Europe,” because the policies of Democrats and Republicans alike have “caused whites worldwide to be ashamed of their race and history.” In 1985, Johnson, a corporate attorney, wrote a book under the pseudonym James O. Pace, calling for a constitutional amendment to limit citizenship to whites and deport all black people. He already has run unsuccessfully for two congressional seats, in Wyoming and Arizona, as well as a judgeship in California. He used a 19-year-old Klansman as his campaign manager in Wyoming and brought in a nativist extremist with a felony conviction for grand theft to work on his Arizona campaign.
Loy Mauch (R-Ark., incumbent)
Office sought: Arkansas House of Representatives
Mauch, who was first elected to the Arkansas House of Representatives in November 2010, is known for a series of extreme pro-Confederate statements over the years, many published as letters to the editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He has repeatedly excoriated Abraham Lincoln (“this Northern neurotic war criminal”), comparing him and Northern Civil War generals to “Wehrmacht leaders.” He defends the Confederacy, saying that the Confederate battle flag is “a symbol of Christian liberty.” In 2010, Mauch claimed that the 14th Amendment — which granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the U.S., notably including the freed slaves — was never legally ratified and is “essentially a Karl Marx concept.” In 2009, repeating a point he first made in 2003, Mauch asked in one letter to the editor of the Arkansas paper, “If slavery were so God-awful, why didn’t Jesus or Paul condemn it, why was it in the Constitution and why wasn’t there a war before 1861?” In 2004, Mauch organized a conference in Hot Springs, featuring a keynote speech entitled “Homage to John Wilkes Booth,” that called for the removal of an Abraham Lincoln statue. In his last run for re-election, in 2010, the Arkansas Times reported that Mauch was then a member of the League of the South, a neo-secessionist group that wants to create a theocratic society legally dominated by white “European Americans.”
State Rep. Matt Shea (R-Wash., incumbent)
Office sought: Washington House of Representatives
First elected in 2008, Shea serves as the minority floor leader for the Washington House of Representatives. Shea has distinguished himself by appearing in 2009 on the conspiracist “Alex Jones Show,” where he claimed he knew about the existence of concentration camps built by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to imprison Americans. “And most particularly disturbing about that,” Shea said, parroting conspiracy theories popular in the antigovernment “Patriot” movement, “is that they’re gonna be on former military bases.” He went on to say that there were “some very eerie similarities between using pastors to pacify people now as happened in Nazi Germany.” Later in the interview, after Jones claimed that the Wall Street Journal had “called for a world government,” Shea said, “It’s shocking. … This is looking too much like the precursor to Nazi Germany and communist Russia.” Discussing federal measures to combat climate change and identify animals, Shea said, “Their goal, again, I think, is about control. I don’t think it has anything to do with them protecting the environment or preventing diseases among animals.” In 2010, among other proposed state “sovereignty” laws that would allow “nullification” of some federal mandates, Shea sponsored the so-called “Sheriff First Act,” which would require federal law enforcement agents to get the permission of local sheriffs before operating in their counties. Even with that permission, the bill would allow the federal agents only to arrest people on federal lands in the state.
Frank Szabo (R-N.H.)
Office Sought: Hillsborough County Sheriff (defeated)
Szabo, a former businessman who moved from Pennsylvania to become an organic farmer, ran as “a constitutional sheriff” who would protect citizens against “rogue agencies” and “rogue bureaucrats” but lost by huge margins in the September 2012 Republican primary. (The idea of a constitutional sheriff is rooted in groups like the violently anti-Semitic Posse Comitatus, although it also has been adopted by many hardline antigovernment “Patriot” groups more recently.) Earlier, in 1994, Szabo ran unsuccessfully for Congress in Pennsylvania as an independent. Szabo is a member of the Oath Keepers, a Patriot group given to conspiracy theories about secret government plans to impose martial law and various other perfidies. He made headlines in August 2012, during his campaign, when he suggested that deadly force should be used to prevent legal abortions. “Just because a law is on the books doesn’t make it lawful,” he said, adding, “[W]hy would anyone object to the use of deadly force to prevent the murder of an unborn human?” He retracted those comments under pressure, but still stated, in a press release, that abortion is “murder” and that, if elected, he would arrest anyone involved in the murder of a county citizen.
Shaun Winkler (R-Idaho)
Office sought: Bonner County Sheriff (defeated)
Winkler has a long history of white supremacist activity, from his days as a young racist skinhead in Pennsylvania to his later work as a staffer for the neo-Nazi Aryan Nations, where he was a trusted aide to the group’s late leader, Richard Butler. He also joined a faction of the Ku Klux Klan. Earlier this year, he decided to run for sheriff of Bonner County despite all that baggage and more. Winkler has publicly derided African Americans and Jews. In May 2012, he held a cross-burning on his recently acquired Idaho property; questioned about it, he claimed that it was “more of a religious symbol” than a racist ceremony. “Most people don’t know that we don’t just oppose the Jews and the Negroes,” he told the Bonner County Daily Bee. “We also oppose sexual predators and drugs of any kind.” In the end, Winkler got 182 votes, coming in a distant third in a three-way race.
on October 19th, 2012 at 11:27 am
Reading about Oath Keepers reminds me of our dear friend Joseph. I miss that guy :(
on October 19th, 2012 at 11:46 am
As Virgil Goode, Jr. demonstrates thereare very fine lines indeed between Democrats, Republicans, and Crazies in Virginia.
The most distressing thing here is the news that former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore is making a comeback.
on October 19th, 2012 at 11:50 am
Keith Ellison is not a congressman from Michigan, rather he represents Minnesota’s fightin’ 5th.
on October 19th, 2012 at 12:34 pm
By the political standards of today, these people are really only slightly beyond moderate-right. To accuse these people of extremism is to excuse the vast number of politicians who hold very similar views but are more at home with dissembling.
on October 19th, 2012 at 1:49 pm
Virgil’s father, who was a Virginia state legislator, is probably spinning in his grave over junior’s behavior. I saw the older Goode speak many years ago. He was an old-fashioned New Deal Democrat, Southern branch, with Populist leanings, which means he was just fine with the government helping people get work and building roads and dams and other useful stuff, and happy to give the Republicans hell for their tax-dodging, worker-crushing ways. Not sure what happened to Young Virgil – maybe he got dropped on his head at some point.
on October 19th, 2012 at 2:46 pm
Yeah, where is Joseph?
on October 19th, 2012 at 2:57 pm
Joseph said he was having trouble of some kind with his sister’s ex. Then he dropped off the map.
on October 19th, 2012 at 3:22 pm
I saw a zombie that looked exactly like Mark Clayton on “The Walking Dead”.
on October 19th, 2012 at 3:55 pm
Texas Republicans spawn a lot of wackos, no doubt about it. But this guy Cruz is frightening — simply because anybody with an R after their name will win in Texas. Even Obama would win in Texas if he had an R after his name, because most Texans can at least pick out the big important letters.
Cruz has pledged to abolish the Department of Education, Department of Energy, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the IRS. This guy defines Tea Party nut case. Kay Baily Hutchinson was a hard core Republican battle axe, but apart from weird stuff like advocating for same-sex only classrooms, she at least had some interest in improving education.
Cruz seems determined to throw the country back a hundred years. Lord help the Senate.
on October 19th, 2012 at 4:09 pm
Interesting how the SPLC editor will sometimes refute the claims of the politician in parentheses (such as mentioning the Constitution wont allow Sharia Law), but when the politician says something correct, such as that whites in the US are going to become a minority, the editor has no comment or refutation.
I agree some of these politicians are saying things that are outright lies like Bachmann saying Vaccines are a conspiracy, but when they say something and it’s true, why is that wrong?
on October 19th, 2012 at 4:27 pm
Shane,
Sigh….
Ok…White People are statistically responsible for most child molestations and serial killings in the United States. These are facts and saying it is true.
So, let’s make the argument, for example, that White People should be prevented from teaching or working in public schools to protect our children. I am not making this argument, just suggesting it as one example of using facts to make a case.
Do you feel this kind of argument would be right or wrong, and why?
on October 19th, 2012 at 5:02 pm
“when they say something and it’s true, why is that wrong?”
Who said it was wrong? Why would the editor’s NOT offering a correction of a comment lead you to believe the comment is considered wrong? You don’t say you’re a WN, but your fractured logic seems typical of one.
on October 19th, 2012 at 5:34 pm
What’s the difference between the JDL, the LGBT, the aryan brotherhood, the SPLC, the government, or any Christian, Muslim, Jewish or athiest group?
Any one of them can claim the other is a hate group. It simply comes down to which group has the most power, wealth and propaganda at their disposal.
Since the state gets all it’s wealth from the banking institutions and giant corporations. The giant corporations and the state are one in the same. They are a monolithic corporation. They make all the rules, have all the power, wealth and media propaganda.
That’s how the game is played. The SPLC is firmly aligned with the giant corporation known as the state. If the SPLC wasn’t aligned with the state, they would have to name the state as the largest hate group in the country by far.
The state spends roughly one trillion dollars a year for the sole purpose of killing tens of thousands of people every year in other countries. We call these countless hundreds of thousands people killed, suspected terrorists.
Discounting 9/11, an arguable false flag operation. The number of americans killed on US soil by any Al Qaeda terrorist is zero. Yet the corporate media will tell us the fight is never ending and many millions must die just in case.
The state run media will tell us that an individual who is anti-state is a danger. The SPLC will tell us who is or isn’t a hate group, who does and who doesn’t constitute a danger. Yet the SPLC will never call the state a danger or a hate group. And conversely, the state will support the SPLC.
on October 19th, 2012 at 7:01 pm
This is a real nuthouse riot here. I may sound odd wanting to never ever limit free speech, but here’s how it could go: Spellcheck programmed to never accept any of the 39 or 40 words currently banned. Jibbigo translation technology used to blank out any non PC statements from being typed into a computer. Color copier currency recognition being expanded to recognize and not copy these words and sentences also. Then these idiots take over.
on October 19th, 2012 at 7:55 pm
ShaneW,
Hi, JasEzrAnnie. Guess I’ll have to add adapt your hive name. How does JaShWEzrAnnie sound?
“…when the politician says something correct, such as that whites in the US are going to become a minority, the editor has no comment or refutation.”
Um, let’s see … maybe because “refuting” the truth would be equivalent to asserting the opposite of truth?
“… when they [i.e., extremist nut jobs like Michelle Bachmann] say something and it’s true, why is that wrong?”
It wouldn’t be wrong, it would be a novelty.
on October 20th, 2012 at 1:00 am
“such as that whites in the US are going to become a minority, the editor has no comment or refutation.”
The idea is not to say that they are lying, I believe, but that they seem unduly concerned with maintaining a “white” majority. Actually this claim can be disputed, but it’s a bit too complicated to do in little blurbs about each candidate. Basically, there are a lot of people who are considered “white” according to the census, but do not consider themselves white. For example, “white” includes people from the Middle East and North Africa, but do you think that Arabs or Berbers identify themselves as “white” when they reach the US? Even if they appear “white”, do other “white” people treat them that way?
on October 20th, 2012 at 10:50 am
ShaneW —
Why would SPLC “refute” something that is true — as in that by 2042, the “white” population in the U.S. is projected to be in the minority compared with other “races.” I suppose SPLC could have gone into some explanation about this, but since the article was about goofy things that are said (e.g., vaccines causing mental defects in kids), I expect that the writer didn’t see the need to provide detail regarding population projections.
on October 20th, 2012 at 12:42 pm
“White” people might indeed become a minority. So are white cars. It’s the engine that counts.
on October 20th, 2012 at 8:44 pm
ShaneW: “when the politician says something correct, such as that whites in the US are going to become a minority, the editor has no comment or refutation.”
Well, if it’s going to be correct, what comment are you expecting? These politicians probably also paid tribute to their backers, parents, and political gurus. Nothing to comment on or refute there, either. SPLC commented on and refuted their blatant idiocies and silliness.
And if you’re eager to refute that above statement you made, I suggest you find a nice girl with a moustache like Hitler’s, marry her, and raise 25 kids, one for each roster spot on the ball team.
So whites are going to be a minority in this country. What then? They’re already a minority in the world. It’s still spinning.
on October 20th, 2012 at 8:59 pm
I get on here to explore the rainbow of viewpoints and add a color here and there. Aadila, there is indeed a difference between the “facts” and the “true truth” ( point at eyes ). NWO, it is true that every group shamelessly promotes itself. Coca Cola, Exxon, the State. State run schools naturally will push solutions coming from, guess who, the State. Shane, I am amused by every PC entity parroting over and over how race does not matter, a view I share – and then they ask you what race you are at every turn.
on October 20th, 2012 at 9:01 pm
NWOslave,
Your comment was so foolish it does not even merit a proper response.
I’ll leave that to my friends on the site who possess greater patience than I do.
on October 20th, 2012 at 10:44 pm
ShaneW –
To clarify the projection of a minority “white” population issue, ShaneW, I will add again that you are correct — the U.S. population is expected to have a white population of 47% percent by 2050, 29% Hispanic (which also includes peope of other “races”), 13% Black (which means their percentage shall stay as it is now) and 9% Asian. I am pulling these projections from the Pew Research Center’s “U.S. Population Projections: 2005-2050. It is available on their website under Pew Social ad Demographic Trends. http://www.pewsocialtrends.org with get you part of the way there.
I’m not exactly sure why you focused on this particular piece of information (that whites will be in the minority — although still the largest subpopulation if one goes by race/ethnicity)–which is, indeed, true, barring serious disruptions in our country or the world (e.g., pandemics, nuclear war, the Yellowstone caldera volcano erupting/exploding). Since we get a lot of white nationalists on this site, I am thinking that the other commenters are assuming this about you — and those of us to comment here tend to be very nervous regarding “dog whistle” statements that are frequently trotted out to inspire fear: “We’re going to be a minority — stock up on weapons now!!!!”
I know that plenty of people who aren’t WNs are closely watching the demographic changes in the U.S. because of what it will mean in terms of how we will care for the elderly with an aging population, what sort of workforce we will have, etc.; indeed, one of the arguments FOR immigration is to bring in people who can “fill in” the workforce and keep our economy strong. But questions remain as to how cohesive our society will be — even if one isn’t preoccupied by the race question — since much of the growth in population over the next 40 years will be due to immigration and the children that the immigrants will then have here.
I found the Pew report intriguing because it does indeed show (in lots of graphs, no less!) just how much a nation of immigrants we really have been (after we exterminated most of the Native Americans — still a national disgrace). Of interest: Immigration rates were much higher in the 1800s than now – even accounting for “illegal” immigration — and yet we managed as a country to get through all of that. And although much of the pre-1960s immigration was composed of “white” Europeans (because of exclusionary immigration policies), it isn’t as if they were all embraced by the people who were already here. Ask the Irish (“No Irish Inside”), Italians, Polish Jews, etc. “Different” will always be viewed with suspicion by some people.
As for the Hispanics, they settled the U.S. in St. Augustine, FL before Jamestown, plus Hispanics had settled California and large parts of the Southwest before they were so rudely ejected. They ARE a part of American culture already — despite the recent anti-immigrant viciousness against them.
Sorry for the lecture if you aren’t a white nationalist. If you are interested in demography, take a look at the Pew report. It tells a very interesting story about America that, I would hope, will give hope, as well, to our prospects for the future, even if, collectively, we look a bit different than the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock!
And by the way — for ANYONE who thinks immigrants are taking their jobs, or old people staying employed are keeping the young unemployed, please google “lump of labor fallacy.” In short, more employment means more employment, and the economy is not naturally “boxed.”
on October 20th, 2012 at 10:47 pm
Can’t say I’m surprised to see Michele Bachmann on this list. As a Minnesota resident myself, I can tell you she’s an embarrassment to all rational people in this state.
on October 21st, 2012 at 8:34 pm
“The giant corporations and the state are one in the same. They are a monolithic corporation. They make all the rules, have all the power, wealth and media propaganda.”
Let me clarify this for you.
The giant corporations own the state, but it is NOT one and the same with the government. The government is like a labor union that tries to bargain with the corporations on behalf of the people to secure food, clothing, shelter, retirement savings and an occasional weekend off for do bees.
on October 21st, 2012 at 8:38 pm
“How does JaShWEzrAnnie sound?”
Gesundheit, CM.
on October 22nd, 2012 at 11:12 am
Sam Molloy,
What is the difference between “facts” and the “true truth” but a willingness to remain open minded? My observation with the Danger of White People example is that there are clear logical fallacies in the arguments presented by the right, very often due to being so closed minded that opinions are given greater weight than facts.
Saying White People are a menace in my example is a type of fallacy called an “appeal to the known”. That is, taking a fact beyond its proper context without enough data to reach a valid conclusion. An appeal to the known is a form of ignorance. My example would also be a form of “guilt by association”, which is another fallacy of logic frequently employed by the political right (i.e. “smear”). There may be other fallacies there as well, such as pars pro toto, taking the crimes of some White People to represent all White People.
My point is that one cannot take a single fact or limited set of facts and derive from them conclusions which are logically sound. Unfortunately, this is exactly what characterizes the way most right wing ideologues present their arguments, from a position of opinion that excludes conflicting facts. No amount of fist pounding and vein throbbing from the right wing changes the ignorance of their views. Case in point, sharia is not and cannot be a menace to our system of government.
Liberals are generally more aware that knowledge is itself a conflicting and often contradictory process, and seek to remain open minded about all the facts before drawing conclusions. This means, plainly, that we let facts guide our opinions, whereas the right wing chooses to ignore inconvenient truths.
on October 22nd, 2012 at 11:49 am
so I guess now the SPLC says that just associating with a person who belongs to some group means that you support everything that group stands for…… give me a break.
as for those people running for office who want to deal with illegal immigration. there is nothing wrong with that as the majority of americans want something done. and the majority of americans do not want to give amnesty to people who are here illegally. THAT DOES NOT MEAN they are part of a hate group, belong on a hate list of anything.
as for Col. West, he has at least spend time on the battle field. has anyone else here done so? has anyone at the SPLC spent time on a battle field?? im betting that answer is no
Just because they dont agree with the SPLC agenda of open borders and no border patrol agents stopping illegal crossers doesnt mean they are wrong. They are entitled to their thoughts just like some of those inside the SPLC.
as for Cruz fighting for the execution of an illegal alien. The people of texas who know about the case of this illegal know that he deserved to die because of how disgusting the crime really was. the illegal was in a gang (with 6 others) who raped two girls under 16 for two hours before killing both of them. he fought for the execution because he believed that a foreign government should not be telling the US government or state what to do.
on October 22nd, 2012 at 12:25 pm
“Just because they dont agree with the SPLC agenda of open borders and no border patrol agents stopping illegal crossers doesnt mean they are wrong. ”
Whoops, straw man. Argument debunked.
“and the majority of americans do not want to give amnesty to people who are here illegally. THAT DOES NOT MEAN they are part of a hate group, belong on a hate list of anything.”
No but some do, and they share the same goals, that is more than mere association. And, it does mean that the majority of Americans haven’t analyzed the cost-benefit of comprehensive immigration reform, because a pathway to citizenship is a better economic choice than zero-tolerance. In short they are ignorant, and their ignorance is very much fed by hate groups who are their ideological allies.
“has anyone at the SPLC spent time on a battle field?? ”
It is curious how most of the war hawks in the legislature have not served on the battlefield. Just like Mitt Romney. As for the record of service of Col. West, he used mock execution and beating (i.e. torture) to obtain incorrect intelligence during interrogation while serving in Taji, Iraq. In 2011 he voted for the government to be able to hold American citizens indefinitely without trial. Sounds like his time on the battlefield didn’t teach him much about the Constitution.
on October 22nd, 2012 at 1:50 pm
James, if you had not just dropped out of the sky to bother us, you would know that most of the men who comment here have done military service, and they have done it without whipping up on prisoners of war or other such feats of daring that would make them bait for courts-martial or dishonorable discharge. As for me…no, no military service, but when I was draft age, they didn’t take women.
on October 22nd, 2012 at 1:54 pm
Hi James –
You raised a valid point about how politicians — and actually, many other people — deal with elements that others might consider unsavory as part of their JOBS. I know that if someone looked at some of my associations (e.g., militia types who were also into white supremacy, gang members), they may jump to conclusions (I am an environmental consultant, so I work with whomever I need to if they live where I am working).
It would be useful if the “general public” had a better understanding of the fact that, in order to resolve issues, one must sometimes work with people–or at least meet with people–that you might not agree with (or find quite odious, sometimes). I am often surprised by how unwilling a lot of my corporate clients are to deal with “the lower classes” or any other people who scare them (meaning not people of their class or education)–but then, if they did, I probably wouldn’t have a lot of work.
Politics is an especially messy sphere, since candidates or incumbents need to at least reach out or listen to their constituents/potential constituents. I have often found politicians interesting for this reason (although the ones associated with the Tea Party definitely do not impress). They have to willing to reach out and to compromise, but they also have to be willing to stand tall on certain issues and say they simply cannot support certain positions of actions. The good ones are able to do this, although I think even the best has missteps.
There is a difference between meeting with your constituents/potential constituents and climbing into bed with snakes. At present, because of the high degree of political polarization (and the entry of folks like many of the Tea Party people who are less interested in serving all of their constituents as they are pushing their agendas — but perhaps some of them will actually grow into their positions and work to represent all of their constituents–including those who didn’t vote for them), it appears that politicians are more likely to venture farther afield to meet potential supporters. (BTW– I don’t mean to sound patronizing regarding the Tea Partiers, however, many of them REALLY don’t understand politics or have any interest in trying to work with others. The hideous Rep. Joe Walsh, who I recently had to talk to and is a bonafide Rage-a-holic comes to mind).
In some ways this is good — reaching out to social justice groups or groups of small business or small communities that are often lost in the shuffle behind the “big” interests, but it also means that some of these folks are no longer particularly concerned about courting groups with a propensity for violence or spreading intentional lies and hate.
In terms of SPLC’s comments regarding the people they follow, they understand politics, and I would trust them 99% of the time regarding their concerns about politicians WILLING associations with truly unsavory groups. It’s one thing to talk to people — it’s another to enthusiastically endorse their efforts to abuse or exploit others. Watch Romney’s “47% tape” for a view of someone who is, at least in my opinion, attempting to play to the basest instincts of people who are already wielding outsized influence in this election. Talking and listening isn’t the same as pandering and embracing.
on October 22nd, 2012 at 2:10 pm
Just one important point about the 1924 Immigration act. White Nationalists claimed it limited immigration to Europe; this is deceptive. First, it nearly cut off immigration from Eastern and Southern Europe. Second, it allowed immigration from a lot of places like Africa and Latin America but many of these people didn’t have the means to immigrate. The Chinese were already restricted by the Chinese Exclusion Act. In 1965, much of the places the 1924 act excluded(Eastern Europe) were behind the iron curtain. When white nationalists claim that the Jooz used the immigration act of 1965 to ruin America, it only shows they have no idea what they’re talking about, as usual.
on October 22nd, 2012 at 2:40 pm
Hi Ruslan –
Yes — immigration was never all that easy for people who weren’t from Northern Europe.
I always find it interesting to hear the stories some of the older people tell about their parents immigrating — especially from places like Italy, Greece, Romania, or Russia and some of the issues they had to deal with in “white” America. People forget, which is probably good in some ways.
I have also often found it interesting how people in the area where I grew up will wax nostalgic about how wonderful it was that many of the German families in the area (it was a German farming area) used to speak German all the time and never bothered to learn English — even though they had been here for several generations. Several of the churches in the area did all of their religious stuff in German, although they stopped doing that during WWII due to anti-German sentiments.
Still, I find it interesting when the same people who thought the German speaking was quaint and wonderful and a great demonstration of ethnic pride totally freak when any mention of Hispanics, and especially Hispanics who speak mostly just Spanish, comes up.
But then, I have a decent grasp of Spanish, so it really isn’t an issue as far as I am concerned.
As for the treatment of the Chinese by the railroads: atrocity much? The thing is, based on some of the publications SPLC has and other things I’ve read, I think a lot of pretty abusive (or make that, “really abusive and deadly”) stuff goes on in regard to exploitation of immigrants.
on October 22nd, 2012 at 3:42 pm
CM, one possible theory to explain how Virgil Goode, Junior came out is that he does come from Franklin County, Virginia which is the self proclaimed* Moonshine Capitol of the World.
A more plausible theory is that Virgil Goode, Senior would have come of age as part of the generation who actually remembers the mountain south before the New Deal – they tended to be pro-government because the government was the people who brought in roads, electricity, and jobs. The mountain south thanks to the mining (not really in Franklin County) and railroads was also much more union heavy than the rest of the south. However, the mountain regions especially in the South has long been rather indepedent – and not exactly trustful of the government which after all are the people who are trying to infringe on their God given Constitutional right to make moonshine, avoid taxes, drive cars really fast with their headlights off at night, and shoot anyone who gets into their business or too close to their stills.
Add in the fallout from the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Nixon’s southern strategy – and the fact that the Mountain south is just as racist as the rest of the South and the Southern Strategy and add to the fact that people who remember how much the federal government helped the mountain South get out of extreme poverty in the 1930s have largely died off and you see why there has been such a move to the right.
* they have welcome signs saying that on U.S. 220 to prove it :)
on October 22nd, 2012 at 5:41 pm
White America and our children”
I took this quote from above. You ever see a bunch of idiots and they just don’t get it. The ones that are bringing any harm and causing more problems for them and their children and families are the one promoting and propagating hate.
Perhaps if the energies were better put into building the community and teaching tolerance the fear that has gripped these men so deeply may dissipate.
Just because someone is gay does not mean you have to be gay. Just as when someone subscribes to a different religion you don’t have to subscribe to it as well. So let go of the imagined war and perhaps the wars that have manifested from the sick minds of hate will start to fade and secure the future for every American no matter what color.
I can’t believe that people actually subscribe to the idiocy that color is indicative of intelligence.
When did America get inundated with so many village idiots?
Now is it up to the rest of us to have pity on them? Or perhaps we should cast them out and send them to a remote island.
on October 22nd, 2012 at 5:54 pm
Aadilia, I was not being sarcastic. “True Truth” is a Native American term and their sign for it is to point at their eyes, a la Three Stooges. One classic example is, a homeowner calls the PoPo to his home. Dead non resident on the floor. Signs of a struggle. Facts. Obvious. But in reality the resident owed the deceased money, invited him over and killed him trying to make it look legit. (point at eyes)
on October 22nd, 2012 at 7:55 pm
Erika,
I agree completely with your assessment of Virgil Goode Sr. He was the very model of a Southern Democrat of the 1930s-60s. And he never switched parties, unlike so many who – like the execrable (and, as we learned after his untimely passing, miscegenating) Strom Thurmond – fled to the Republicans out of nothing but base racism.
As for Junior’s jump to the farthest right, I was of course joking about him being dropped on his head. Actually, the real cause is something that Plato understood almost two and a half millennia ago: Junior is Cambyses to Senior’s Cyrus. In Laws III, the “Athenian” describes Cyrus’ effectiveness as a ruler and then explains why Cyrus’ son, Cambyses, was such a loser:
“Probably he [Cyrus] spent all his life from boyhood in soldiering, and entrusted his children to the women folk to rear up; and they brought them up from earliest childhood as though they had already attained to Heaven’s favour and felicity, and were lacking in no celestial gift; and so by treating them as the special favorites of Heaven, and forbidding anyone to oppose them, in anything, and compelling everyone to praise their every word and deed, they reared them up into what they were.” (Laws III, 694d. R.G. Bury translation, online at the inestimable Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/)
On Franklin County, I wonder if those highway signs aren’t mostly nostalgia. The feds tried at some point to crack down on the moonshining by making people show ID and sign a form if they were buying more than a few 5- or 10-pound bags of sugar (a vital ingredient in white lightning), much as we all have to sign today at the drug store to buy anything containing pseudoephedrine (a vital ingredient in methamphetamine). What I’ve heard was that a lot of the moonshiners switched to cultivating cannabis in the 1970s and more recently to manufacturing meth or cultivating relationships with bent doctors to obtain Oxycontin. But I’m a lowlander, so I’m not a very reliable source on these things.
on October 23rd, 2012 at 10:56 am
CM — Wow! Thanks for the translation on the raising of Cyrus’ children. It is actually a very apt description for why many people are the way they are, with a sense of “entitlement” without any understanding of work or effort.
on October 23rd, 2012 at 11:46 am
In fact, it sounds like the history of a certain political family whose name rather rhymes with “hominy”.
on October 23rd, 2012 at 1:09 pm
Sam,
All the more reason to keep guns out of the hands of law abiding citizens.
on October 23rd, 2012 at 1:55 pm
Well, you know what they say, Rey…he’s got true grits.
on October 23rd, 2012 at 4:15 pm
I would have alluded to Mr. Grits, however, I felt that it was too easy and that it pretty much went without saying.
Such a shame about the demise of his blimp, though. That had to be…DEFLATING!!!
And they say it’s tough for women to break into comedy!!!
on October 23rd, 2012 at 4:59 pm
LOL Coral, I guess the mean girls of SPLC won’t be invited to any funerals. Where’s Erika, she likes to laugh at inappropriate moments too…
on October 24th, 2012 at 9:17 am
A blimp as a repository of hot air is such an apt analogy for many politicians. i believe that Ron Paul was the first to provide us with that unintentional comedy of actually using a blimp.
A deflating blimp is such an apt analogy for Mittens. What type of politician can’t even hold his own hot air – one who has been described as being an Etch a Sketch which means that not only he is full of hot air he is full of hot air which someone else puts there.
In fact, i actually know the perfect comparison – as you might remember they used to sell toy Goodyear Blimps where you could have the message of your choice such as “Erika Rules” or “Boys Stink” in lights from the Gooyear Blimp. That is almost a perfect desciptio of Mr. Mittens if there ever was one – just let the advisors insert his message of the day such as “Pro Choice” or “Ban all Abortions” and send it out there to crash in flames.
Okay, it probably really didn’t crash in flames, but to really represent the modern REpublicans it really should be filled with Hydrogen.
Okay, maybe that is just Rush Limbaugh (and obviously Newt Gingrinch as well):
Remember the old joke: what is the difference between Rush Limbaugh and the Hindenburg?
One is a big fat Nazi gasbag and the other is a blimp :)
on October 25th, 2012 at 12:40 pm
Michelle Bachman is an embarrassment to the good people of Minnesota. And she and her husband support “treatment” to cure GLBT citizens. She and her family have ownership interests in farm properties that receive government subsidies while she decries these same government programs.
on October 25th, 2012 at 3:23 pm
You would probably run out of space on this site if you listed all of the politicians that should be on this list. Including some that belong at the very top of a political trash heap like Paul Ryan, Jan brewer and a multitude of other right wing racist fanatics that support groups like the FRC by default simply by attending and speaking at their hate summits. That shows where they stand on a lot of issues. I would include Mitt Romney to but he is only an empty shirt that is led around by a ring in his nose to be the henchman for the far right agenda of taking away peoples rights that the rest of the racist bigots don’t agree with.
on October 25th, 2012 at 3:27 pm
Why is Ron Paul not on this list?
on October 25th, 2012 at 4:34 pm
James,
As a veteran myself I can say that West has no business having a position in government and I absolutely abhor the Army giving him the opportunity to retire out rather than face court martial. That being said CID had been kept out of Iraq for the most part, had they not been West would be in a military prison where he belongs for his behavior. It is bad enough when enlisted people are guilty of brutality, but it is so much worse when it is an officer! They’re supposed to know better and they’re supposed to be held to a higher code of conduct because they are in leadership. West wants to retain what is essentially a leadership position, oh hell no! Not with his behavior that is so unbecoming of a leader. He acts like a child and the country needs grown ups in office.
on October 25th, 2012 at 4:40 pm
Why is Mitt Romney not on this list as well?
on October 25th, 2012 at 5:13 pm
Just because someone disagrees with you doesn’t mean they are extremists.
on October 25th, 2012 at 5:41 pm
SamDamnit,
Ron Paul wasn’t on the list because his career will now consist of spending time on the golf course (which, if George Soros has any joy, will be abolished in due course by the U.N.)
on October 25th, 2012 at 5:49 pm
Thank you for this.
As awareness rises it is critical information such as this is provided to the public. We need to make educated decisions and this definitely helps. Thanks.
on October 25th, 2012 at 6:40 pm
Well, let’s see. You want to know who the hate groups and individuals are, correct. Let’s top the list with SPLC as the #1 group. Who said these folks are “extremists”? You? What a laugh….the people you have named are DECENT, PATRIOTIC AMERICANS and all are LEGAL CITIZENS…..which is more than one can say for the border sneakers. I can give you at least 20 names from your leftest hate-mongering crew, but you seem to think those ANTI-American dirt dobbers are better than the PATRIOTS. Truth is, those ANTI-American dirt dobbers are at the same level as a cock-roach. Now, have a nice day.
on October 25th, 2012 at 7:10 pm
WHY are People in this Country always trying to Put their lifestyle on me. I am a Gambler, I cuss and swear, I used to drink and Smoke cigars and Pot. I always worked to pay for all my bad habits. Lets leave Abortion off the table and Gay marriage all together and not let it get ahead of the economy. When the economy gets to %5 percent Unemployed then we can open up for other issues. I love everyone in this Country as my God recommended for me to do. But all Politics do is ride off the issues we as a People will never be happy with on any side we fall on. We must end NAFTA and forget it we are in the red with CHINA and they are mad as HELL. We must all love our Brothers or we will not see the KINGDOM of GOD
on October 25th, 2012 at 9:51 pm
It is so disheartening. Too manyof us are obviously not knowledgeable enough about our history and constitution, do not know how to listen and read with comprehension and critical reasoning to discern facts virsus biased uninformed opinions, or have not developed a sense of morality or ethics, and what used to be called common decency. The religious, racial, and sexual prejudices are extremely repugnant. Too many people want to take double rights; that is, they want everything their own way, but they also demand others must follow their way. To such people, compromise is a dirty word!
We also need to understand that our economy has for a very long time been undergoing as great a change as was experienced furing the Industrial Revolution. All this was compounded by fighting two wars but not paying for ithem, having far to many people buying into the concept that greed is good and whatever one does in business or politics or daily life ,ii is OK since it is JUST business or politics or daily life as though it doesn’t matter. It does matter. It matters each one of us, separately and together. I have seen all this before and it doesn’t ever really seem to change.. I feel as though I could weep an ocean of tears, but what good would that do? So I support as much as possible people and groups like SPLC.
on October 26th, 2012 at 2:51 am
Wow. It’s ironic that the SPLC website comments sections have become a hub for racists and conspiracy nuts.
Mr. NWO, your comments in particular really made me laugh, especially the part where you said, “discounting 9/11…. number of americans killed on US soil by any Al Qaeda terrorist is zero.”
First of all, this 9/11 conspiracy nonsense has already been disproven repeatedly. Though I think the Bush Administration certainly did a lot of horrible and dishonest things, they weren’t the ones behind 9/11. They were way too incompetent to pull something like that off. This has been independently investigated ad nauseum and there’s simply no evidence to support that wild assertion.
Besides, even if you were able to get away with “discounting” 9/11 (which you weren’t), your statement would still be wrong. Six people were killed in the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center. This attack was also carried out by Al-Qaeda operatives.
As far as your paranoid rant about the SPLC goes, there’s no evidence to support your claim that they’re conspiring with the government. Furthermore, I would dispute your ridiculous claim that the government somehow qualifies as a “hate group.”
There are members of hate groups within our government and the SPLC is doing its best to expose them. But this is a represenative democracy. Though the system is horribly flawed, at the end of the day, we are the ones who decide what people will be working in the government. The government does not institutionally support race-hatred and bigotry like the groups mentioned above do. Instead, the government is defined by the people who govern. Sometimes they’re good, sometimes they’re not.
I suggest you wrap some more tin foil around your head. Some of the alien mind control rays seem to be getting through and interfering with your ability to form rational opinions.
on October 26th, 2012 at 4:29 am
Thanks for all the info. As your organization has gone from a good one that helped blacks to helping support crime & illegality (illegal aliens who steal our jobs, our benefits, do not care one bit if they take away the livelihood of Americans – there are 50 Million illegal aiens and 23 Million Americans out of work – guess who has stolen the jobs!) (We even have 4 Million legal people waiting to come here the right way whose livelihood has been stolen by illegals as well.) I am so glad I cancelled my membership with your sell-out organization! As soon as I see your ridiculous list of so-called radicals, I know these are NOT the radicals and are the sane patriots of this nation. And now I now who to vote for! It is you who have sold out. WHAT A SHAME! SHAME ON YOU!
on October 26th, 2012 at 5:11 am
I find it interesting when the SPLC shows either its ignorance or disdain for the Constitution. Sharia law can be imposed on the US thru a treaty. Please educate yourselves and read Article 6 Paragraph 2 of the Constitution, and then look up the Bill of Rights and familiarize yourself with Second and the Tenth Amendments. In as much as the federal government is misusing the Establishment, Necessary and Proper, Commerce, and Supremacy Clauses States have a right to not only discuss but implement Nullification. Dr. Thomas Woods was correct when he wrote,”If the federal government has the exclusive right to judge the extent of its own powers, warned the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions’ authors (Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, respectively), it will continue to grow – regardless of elections, the separation of powers, and other much-touted limits on government power.”
You denigrate a decorated officer who protected and saved his people under his command yet you say nothing about those who show utter dereliction of duty in protecting our diplomatic personnel resulting in their deaths and then lie about it even after facts are released.
You fail to mention about a president who started a war without consulting anyone in Congress, a clear violation of the Constitution. You fail to mention a president who had the DOJ say that the voter protection laws don’t protect whites so therefore physical threats against whites attempting to vote is OK. You fail to reveal that a president has said he’s the commander-in-chief of the nation and has a right to declare a US citizen an enemy of the stated and have him killed without due process.
You don’t like a conservative Christian but you see nothing wrong with someone bowing to a Muslim potentate, making his first address as president to Muslims outside the US, denigrating Bible owning Christians, refusing initially to hold Christian holiday gatherings in the White House but celebrating Muslim ones.
You denigrate a Democrat who realizes that the US can’t tax its way out of this recession, who believes that an open border policy would be an unmitigated disaster for this sovereign country and who believes the Bill of Rights says what it means.
So who is the extremist?
on October 26th, 2012 at 6:41 am
HUMOR BREAK: Speaking of Michelle Bachmann, if you’d like to have a laugh this morning take a look at the Bad Lip Reading spoof video of her.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFB6LQ1-WKU
Enjoy!
–LG
on October 26th, 2012 at 7:49 am
There is an absolute disconnect from reason and facts with these people. They want to believe in their myths and nothing else. They are oblivious to what history should have taught them. I see this in Georgia all the time, and talking with similar folks is like talking to a sack of door knobs! I feel this does not bode well for this country and wonder where it will lead us in the future. I’m afraid it will take a disaster like a deeper DEPRESSION to get people to think, especially when it happens to them!
on October 26th, 2012 at 8:42 am
And the sad thing about this is that they will get votes and some of them will win their races.
on October 26th, 2012 at 8:43 am
Major Roberto you are totally and completely bonkers.
In fact, you are so bonkers as to be almost completely incomprehensible.
Although being a curious sort, i do wonder exactl what you think the right to bear arms has to do with treaties.
Based upon your complete lack of understanding of even the most basic legal concepts i’m sure it will be extremely entertaining.
on October 26th, 2012 at 10:22 am
Major Roberto,
You have emotion, but no critical thinking. Your “facts” are essentially meaningless factoids that have no contextualization or fullness of argument to substantiate their merits.
It is clear you take your information from partisan sources such as AM talk radio, and have been so saturated with lies and half-truths that you have begun to believe the. Yours is a symptom of how easy it is to dupe the American people: all one must do is play to your fears, arouse your sentiments of national pride, and interject no small amount of cynical disinformation, and voila, you have the typical right wing citizen: disgruntled, disingenuous, and ignorant. Because other disgruntled and ignorant people have been similarly misled, you feel that the collective ignorance is proof of something but it merely shows your ignorance is contageous.
Your grievances are essentially emotional statements, and without political value, except as emotional statements. They can’t be used to guide policy because they show a total ignorance of the issues facing our country, and get lost in such muddled logic that I believe no amount of factual information will penetrate your befuddled consciousness.
A pefect example of your line of thinking is that spending $1 trillion on the Affordable Health Care Act, which will bring down premiums over time and take the burden off taxpayers who are stuck with medicare payments to indigents in the emergency room, is cause for revolution.
But, spending $3 trillion beyond the already bloated military budget, which is 6 times what China spends and larger than the next 20 nations combined, on things the military hasn’t even asked for, is a good way to lower our federal deficit.
If you cannot see how stupid that is, I pity you. Unfortunately people who are so ignorant are driving our coutry into ruin, and the people in the list above are the ones leading you around with a ring in your nose.
on October 26th, 2012 at 11:52 am
Tom McMillin from Michigan 45th should have made the list. He is good buddies with Gary Glenn of AFA MI
on October 26th, 2012 at 1:07 pm
Alveda King, the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, should be added to this list. She is increasingly political and recently screamed that anyone who supports same-sex marriage would “go to hell.” She has supported most of the far-right-wing crazies (listed above) and claims that her father has been misinterpreted because of his wife (Coretta Scott King) who stood for equality for all people. Alveda claims to be a minister but has no authentic credentials, and no knowledge of any Bible I am familiar with. She oozes more vitriol than any person I have known.
on October 27th, 2012 at 10:31 am
@Major Idiot:
Wow, so many ridiculous claims, so little time. Ok, I’ll break down your post and explain to you why you’re wrong….
“I find it interesting when the SPLC shows either its ignorance or disdain for the Constitution. Sharia law can be imposed on the US thru a treaty. Please educate yourselves and read Article 6 Paragraph 2 of the Constitution, and then look up the Bill of Rights and familiarize yourself with Second and the Tenth Amendments.”
Do you even know what a treaty is? And no, Sharia Law most certainly can NOT be imposed here, by treaty or any other means, short of amending the Constitution.
And why did you choose the Second and Tenth amendments to illustrate your claim about Sharia Law? The Second Amendment deals with guns and the Tenth Amendment deals with delegation of powers to the states. I don’t see anything in there that says, “Oh, and all this stuff is null and void if a treaty is signed that contradicts it.”
“In as much as the federal government is misusing the Establishment [Clause]….”
How, exactly?! The Establishment Clause is the part of the First Amendment that deals with the seperation of church and state. If anything, the government has failed to adequately abide by that clause. They most certainly haven’t “misused” it, whatever that means.
“You denigrate a decorated officer who protected and saved his people under his command….”
To whom are you referring?
“….yet you say nothing about those who show utter dereliction of duty in protecting our diplomatic personnel resulting in their deaths and then lie about it even after facts are released.”
Come again?! There’s no evidence that anybody in the U.S. government lied about the deaths in the embassy bombing. And no, conspiracy websites don’t count.
“You fail to mention about a president who started a war without consulting anyone in Congress, a clear violation of the Constitution.”
You’re talking about George W. Bush, right?
“You fail to mention a president who had the DOJ say that the voter protection laws don’t protect whites so therefore physical threats against whites attempting to vote is OK.”
Would you care to cite your source on that, or at least provide a quote? I couldn’t find anything to even loosely corroborate your claim. You’ll need to back up your BS with details.
Voter protection laws protect all vulnerable voters. Neither the DOJ nor the Obama administration has ever stated that it would ignore voter intimidation complaints from white people. Please take your ignorant race-baiting elsewhere.
“You fail to reveal that a president has said he’s the commander-in-chief of the nation and has a right to declare a US citizen an enemy of the stated and have him killed without due process.”
Again, are you referring to Bush or Obama? Regarding the commander-in-chief statement, you are correct in that this label only applies to the military and not to the nation as a whole. However, virtually every single president in modern history has made this minor verbal error at least once. When you people criticize Obama for such stupid stuff like this, it just makes you look desperate.
As far as killing citizens without due process, I agree that it’s absolutely deplorable and I’m extremely disappointed that President Obama has chosen to continue this policy that was started under the Bush administration. That being said, I was complaining about this back when Bush was doing it as well. Were you? Or did you only start to find it offensive when Obama was the one doing it?
You and people like you are just a bunch of hypocrites. You scream about the deficit now but stayed silent when Dick Cheney said, “Deficits don’t matter.” You’re outraged about undeclared wars now but you didn’t have any problem with the invasion of Iraq. You’re just a pretender, leeching off of any criticisms you can find to justify your hatred for this president. If you truly gave a damn about these principles and causes you’re attempting to hijack, you and your comerades would not have stayed silent when your guy was engaged in the same activities that you now claim to abhor.
“You don’t like a conservative Christian but you see nothing wrong with someone bowing to a Muslim potentate, making his first address as president to Muslims outside the US, denigrating Bible owning Christians, refusing initially to hold Christian holiday gatherings in the White House but celebrating Muslim ones.”
Ok, we get it. You’re a Christian and you don’t like Muslims.
President Obama bowed to a foreign leader of a Muslim country on his very first overseas trip. He wasn’t bowing to express subservience. He was bowing because he incorrectly thought that that was the proper way to greet a foreign leader with respect. That’s because, for just about anyone else, that IS the proper way. But the rules are different for foreign leaders like the President. American presidents frequently make gaffes like this on their first foreign trips. It’s a rite of passage. Obama learned from that error and did not repeat it a second time.
It’s also worth noting that Bush held hands and kissed the prince (now king) of Saudi Arabia (another “Muslim potentate,” as you put it). Where was your Christian outrage then?
President Obama wisely made his first overseas address to Muslims because they’re the ones with whom we had the worst relations. It was the beginning of his effort to reach out to the Muslim world and tell them that America does not wish to be their enemy. And you know what? It worked! Terrorist groups have seen a dramatic decline in recruitment under this administration. Al Qaeda has been thrown into chaos and disarray. Oh yes, and President Obama also had Osama bin Laden shot in the face and dumped at sea.
President Obama has never “denigrat[ed] Bible-owning Christians.” He IS a Bible-owning Christian himself! And what Christian holidays has President Obama cancelled at the White House, exactly?! Looks to me like he’s doing all the same ones that every other president did. The fact that they’re recognizing Muslim holidays now as well is a good thing. This is a secular government, not a Christian theocracy.
“You denigrate a Democrat who realizes that the US can’t tax its way out of this recession, who believes that an open border policy would be an unmitigated disaster for this sovereign country and who believes the Bill of Rights says what it means.”
A Democrat who also believes in crazy conspiracy theories, supports discrimination based on sexual orientation, and has called for the execution of all gay people.
“So who is the extremist?”
You are. =)
on October 28th, 2012 at 8:33 am
Thank a bunch SPLC, for reminding me to dig deep and donate yet AGAIN to the campaigns of Cruz, Bachmann, King and West! It’s a pretty safe bet that anyone you extremists label extremist is a great, constitutionalist conservative – as is the case with the aforementioned patriots, who need all the support they can get.
I’d support Virgil Goode too, if it wasn’t for the fact that NOTHING is more important than throwing Obama out on his ass this time around – to the point that I will even vote for a Moderate Mormon. Imagine that!
See ya after the election, scumbags!
on October 29th, 2012 at 9:57 am
Thanks, Kris Craig.
I think what “Major” (or whatever sock puppet name it’s adopted today) fails to understand is an important fact about United States foreign policy.
For a treaty to have any effect in our system, it must be ratified by Congress. Even if the executive signs a treaty with a foreign government that has full effect in that government’s system, it still has to be ratified by Congress to have any legal effect. A treaty is the highest of three forms of executive agreements.
This is why American Presidents are very careful to stay close to Congress before negotiating any treaties with foreign powers because no matter what agreement they come up with, it is the Senate (through supermajority) that has the power to enact it or not. No matter what the executive agrees to in a treaty, she or he must come back to the Senate to argue for ratification. The Senate, not the Executive, is empowered.
Look at Article II, section 2, clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution for a better understanding of the treaty process. There are thousands of agreements between the U.S. government and foreign powers but relatively few have treaty status. Treaties by the way can be easily broken, which is why the strongest international agreements are undertaken as joint legislative actions, not by executive agreement.
on October 29th, 2012 at 10:28 am
On the tradition of U.S. Presidents not bowing to foreign royalty, this long tradition has its roots in the principle of human equality and repudiation of the idea that royals of any kind should be bowed to.
And yet, amid the screaming from the right over this gesture (which also occured in Japan, when Obama met with the Emperor), somehow the meaning of the tradition, i.e., that we operate on the basis of egalitarian principles, has been utterly loss.
America has become a government by corporation, and it is easy to see how the top 1-2% economic strata would be mortified by a President who suggests that the plutocrats should be called on to pay as much in taxes, proportionately, as the common citizen.
So, it is ironic that we are supposed to kow-tow to American plutocrats in numerous ways (mainly by subsidizing their wealth with our poverty), but when our leader shows respect after 8 years of slapping the world in the face, suddenly that is supposed to be interpreted as a sign of weakness.
And yet, we continue to ratchet up the military machine and rain death and destruction down upon any and all who stand in our way. Barack Obama’s Presidency may be interpreted in many ways, but “weakening” of U.S. hegemony is not a claim that stands up to the facts.
So, the only logical question is, why are Obama’s opponents so bereft of argument that they must concoct phantom notions about bucking tradition, instead of concrete and real solutions to America’s troubles? Obviously it is because they don’t have a leg to stand on.
on October 29th, 2012 at 10:31 am
You know this list is no doubt useful for parents to know what houses to avoid if you do not want your children to get Chick Tracts in their bags on Halloween. If there are yard signs for one of these candidates, there is a very good chance that your child will be given a Chick Tract.
Of course, given the average intelligence level of the Republican base (which Michael so perfectly represents) you’ll probably see copies of Chick Tracts being distributed to children on Halloween by people with Romney signs in their yard. So i would also be wary of going to houses with Romney signs since there would definitely be a fair Chick Tract risk there.
Houses with Obama signs represent no Chick Tract risk and houses with no signs at all indicate a slight Chick Tract risk by my estimation since its quite possible that those houses are opposed to Obama because he is a Moozlim* and Romney because he is a member of the Moran* Church.
An additional warning sign of possible Chick Tract distribution is having Confederate battleflags or the Rattlesnake Flag of Teabagistan.
There is considered to be absolutely no Chick Tract distribution risk from houses which are flying Notre Dame flags.
My only regret is that thanks to Sandy and Dominion Power’s money grubbing ways which sometimes result in massive power outages following light showers let alone a hurricane, i likely won’t get to hear about Chick Tract distributions on Halloween this year.
* spellings courtesy of the local Tea Party.
on October 29th, 2012 at 12:07 pm
Erika is right as usual.
Though I personally would steer clear of the Romney homes because, besides the gates and guard dogs trying to keep the needy from getting close to the domicile, there is an ever present risk of accidental gun violence when some paranoid right winger sees people in costumes at their door.
on October 30th, 2012 at 9:08 am
aadila, the vast majority of Romney supporters are poor or lower middle class white people who vote Republican becuse they are religious extremists who simply hate black people, homosexuals, and women. They are obviously a major Chick Tract risk. Thus the risk from Romney supporters giving Chick Tracks should be seen highest in poor or lower middle class areas.
and obviously my power didn’t fail after all :)
on October 30th, 2012 at 10:22 am
Erika (and anyone else interested) you might want to take a look at this Bill Moyers show/transcript from the other day. Especially the comments from Chrystia Freeland about how “political capture” gets voters exactly like the ones Erika describes to go along with policies that are against their interests. I bet her latest book is interesting:
http://billmoyers.com/episode/.....cy-rising/
on November 1st, 2012 at 4:51 pm
@legalhound,,,Could not have said it better myself! I agree with you 100%!
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