Report: Florida Shooter Belonged To A White Supremacist Militia

The Anti-Defamation League has some background on the Florida school shooter.  Surprise, surprise:

A spokesperson for the white supremacist group Republic of Florida (ROF) told the Anti-Defamation League on Thursday, February 15, that Nikolas Cruz, the man charged with the previous day’s deadly shooting spree at a Parkland, Florida, high school, was associated with his group. [snip]

If Cruz’s role is confirmed, the Parkland school shooting would be the second school shooting by a white supremacist in the past two months. In December 2017, another young white supremacist, William Atchison, engaged in a shooting spree at a high school in northwest New Mexico, killing two students before shooting himself. 

Charleston, Charlottesville... the ADL is noticing a pattern:

White supremacists and other far-right groups committed the majority of extremist-related murders in the United States last year, according to a new report by the Anti-Defamation League. 

White supremacists were "directly responsible" for 18 out of 34 U.S. extremist-related deaths in 2017, the ADL said. Islamic extremists, by comparison, were only responsible for nine deaths in America. 

The connection between the National Rifle Rampage Association and right- wing militias has long been evident.  So, to summarize, we're at the nexus of mental health issues, white supremacists and a high- octane money and influence machine determined to maintain easy access to killing machines at all costs.

BONUS: No More Mister Nice Blog has more.

(Image:  Photo from Nikolas Cruz' Instagram profile - via Wonkette)

"Sovereign Citizens" The Top Domestic Terrorist Threat

A new study of domestic terrorism reports that law enforcement perceives far right-wing anarchist "sovereign citizens" as the greatest threat to domestic tranquillity:

In a new study conducted by researchers tasked with  studying of the root causes and consequences of terrorism in the U.S. and abroad, the sovereign citizen movement was perceived to be the gravest terrorist threat, rivaling Islamist extremists and militia/patriot groups. 

According to National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism —better known as START— sovereign citizens were the top concern of law enforcement, even as a belief that some domestic groups including the KKK, Christian Identity, and neo-Nazis represent less of an actual terrorist threat when compared to a previous study.

Note that, taken as a whole, the fetid, far-right swamps of sociopaths such as the militia/ patriot movement, neo-Nazis, KKK, etc., comprise the vast majority of groups threatening domestic terrorism.

Report: Right-Wing Militia Threat Grows

The standoff last spring at the Nevada ranch of deadbeat wingnut Cliven "Hoof" Bundy and his small but heavily armed brigade of right-wing, anti-Government militia wasn't a spontaneous, organic rallying of like-minded radicals.  According to a new report by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the anti-Government standoff was well-coordinated and executed by a network of right-wing militia groups in the western U.S.  These groups have a noticeable presence of former military and police veterans, who apply the tactics they learned in service to opposing Federal agents enforcing the law.

The report counts 17 instances of shootings involving violent, right-wing anti-Government types and law enforcement in the past four years, the most recent stemming directly from the stand-off at the Bundy ranch involving the fatal shooting in Las Vegas of two police officers and another person by a deranged wingnut couple who had been at the Bundy ranch earlier.

As the report notes, however, the mainstream media hasn't delved into the growing threat of heavily armed, anti-Government organizations, whether out of fear, cynicism, or just plain laziness.  The next time such a confrontation occurs, they'll likely treat it as an isolated incident -- another "shiny object" that they've just noticed -- without the context of the "much larger and more dangerous movement" that grows daily.

(photo:  KLAS-TV, Las Vegas.  Militia loons gather at Bundy Ranch)

Confronting Sovereign Citizens And Right-Wing Libertarians

From the banal in Keene, New Hampshire --

The activists selected this New England-cute city of 24,000 for liberation mostly because it lies within that flinty bastion of Yankee individualism known as New Hampshire, where “Live Free or Die” is carved into the collective granite.

Back in 2003, a libertarian-leaning group called the Free State Project decided that this small state could be a liberty lover’s paradise if enough like-minded people settled here. (The movement, by the way, tends to attract white males, according to Carla Gericke, the group’s president, a white South African who has lived for many years in this country. “I’m the token African-American,” she joked.)   (Ed.:  Yuk-yuk.)  (our emphasis)

And just who are these freedumb fighters "activists" saving us from?

They are part of a broader effort by about two-dozen activists, most of them from someplace else, to unshackle Keene from the “violent monopoly” of government and its enforcers, including these parking officers who work in weather fair and foul. (our emphasis)

Gotta watch out for those violent meter maids!  How nuts do you have to be to see this as "liberty loving?"

To the  fatal in Tanana, Alaska --

A sovereign citizen shot and killed two Alaska state troopers last week during an argument over a $150 couch, authorities said. 

Nathanial Kangas is accused of killing Trooper Sgt. Patrick “Scott” Johnson and Trooper Gabriel Rich as they attempted to arrest the suspect’s father. 

A mother and daughter called Tanana village police Wednesday night because they feared 58-yer-old Arvin Kangas would break into their home and steal a sofa he had sold them.

The elder Kangas told a village public safety officer that he had no jurisdiction to arrest him, and the officer called state police for backup after he said the older man made threats against him with a shotgun.  (our emphasis)

The common thread here is that civil authority and domestic peace is increasingly being threatened, sometimes with deadly consequences, by groups of far-right extremists calling themselves "sovereign citizens" or "libertarians."  As we saw with the Cliven "Hoof" Bundy carnival, it doesn't take much for these freedumb fighters shitwits to grab their guns and claim that they're not answerable to the law.

This has been brewing for some time, but the advent of America's first African-American president led to an explosion in the growth of the sovereign citizen/ nullifier/ secessionist/ militia movement.  At some point, just as George Washington had to put down the Whiskey Rebellion, governments at all levels will have to confront these "domestic terrorists" (h/t Harry Reid).  Sooner is probably better than later.

Today's Tomorrow Cartoon - Sagebrush Seditionists

(click to enlarge)

(Tom Tomorrow, via Daily Kos)

Worth reading:  the University of Michigan's (Go Blue) Juan Cole on calling these far-right cretins and their "militia" gun fondlers what they are:  domestic terrorists.

Shocking News! Right-Wing Militia Division

Why, he's just a God-fearing 'murican!  "Local crazy" arrested by FBI for plotting "localized" terror attack in Minnesota:

Buford “Bucky” Rogers, 24, was arrested for unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon. [snip]

“The FBI believes that a terror attack was disrupted by law enforcement personnel and that the lives of several local residents were potentially saved,” the FBI said in a statement.
A federal affidavit obtained by the AP indicated that Molotov cocktails, pipe bombs and a Romanian AKM assault rifle had been recovered from Buford’s residence at the mobile home park in Montevideo. [snip]

FBI sources described Rogers as a “militia type” to ABC’s Pierre Thomas.

“‘Bucky’ Rogers, MN man allegedly working on terror plot, formed group w/ anti-govt tendencies called ‘Black Snake Militia’ per Montevideo PD,” ABC News producer Matthew Jaffe reported.

Who ...
could...
have...
predicted?

Minnesota -- Land of 10,000 lakes flakes.

Hate Groups On Rise

The Southern Poverty Law Center has published a report on the rise of hate organizations and extremist groups, and the statistics for 2011 are sobering. The report counts 1,018 hate groups -- for example, neo-Nazi, skinhead, neo-Confederate, and white nationalist groups -- in the U.S. in 2011. Anti-gay and anti-Muslim groups comprised the largest increases.

Even more shocking are the statistics for right-wing militia/"patriot" groups: there were 149 such groups in 2008, and 1,274 in 2011. The huge increase is attributed to the election of the first African-American President and widespread conspiracy theories about Government seizure of guns, mass internment of citizens, etc. pushed by fringe radicals (and implicitly accepted by far-right Rethuglican politicians like Reps. Crazy Eyes Bachmann and Steve "Man Who Would Be" King). With the rhetoric and positions of the Rethug Presidential candidates moving farther to the right each week, it's only a matter of time when their views overlap those of the most delusional in our society.

Right Wing Nutbaggery, Cont'd.

There seem to be almost weekly occurrences of an anti-government wingnut acting out his violent fantasies. Now, we see that a former right wing militia leader in Montana is being hunted by law enforcement for firing on sheriff's deputies in Missoula County. The militia group that the fugitive, David Burgert, formerly headed had "allegedly plotted to assassinate local officials, go to war with the National Guard and overthrow the federal government." Burgert has served time in prison for weapons violations, and is considered heavily armed and extremely dangerous. He's vowed that he "wasn't going to be taken down."

These paranoid domestic terrorists need to be treated at least as seriously as we treat foreign terrorists.