Another Repulsive Assualt on Portland-area Veteran

Make not mistake, the Democrats are guilty of creating the federal machinery used against protesters in Portland.

Trump and Republicans are guilty in implementing these storm-troopers to repulsive results.

Have a look at this video where a veteran is assaulted by federal human garbage.

OMG! @realDonaldTrump's Gestapo is attacking American veterans! https://t.co/xANar42CYX

— Kimberley Johnson (@AuthorKimberley) July 26, 2020

Feds Regularly Monitored Black Lives Matter Since Ferguson

"The Department of Homeland Security has been monitoring the Black Lives Matter movement since anti-police protests erupted in Ferguson, Missouri last summer, according to hundreds of documents obtained by The Intercept through a Freedom of Information Act request."

George Joseph at The Intercept has the story.

Don't Monitor Political Thought

Update: Intelligence analysts at the Homeland Security Department ignored objections by civil-liberties officials before sending out a controversial report on the resurgence of domestic right-wing extremism, a department official confirmed Friday.

Last week's release of the publication Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment (7 April 2009 ) by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is ludicrous.

I love anti-hate groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center because of their humanism and abiding exposure of and rebuttals to rightwing whack jobs.

But monitoring the political thought and activity of Americans ought not be the business of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) or any other governmental agency.

From the DHS report:

This product is one of a series of intelligence assessments published by the Extremism and Radicalization Branch to facilitate a greater understanding of the phenomenon of violent radicalization in the United States. The information is provided to federal, state, local, and tribal counterterrorism and law enforcement officials so they may effectively deter, prevent, preempt, or respond to terrorist attacks against the United States.

Look, if American citizens wish to hold and develop crackpot ideas and conceptions, that's their right and their business. In other words: The DHS should butt the hell out.

I never thought that I would agree with much that Michelle Malkin says, but she is right on in writing, "The 'report' (PDF file here) was one of the most embarrassingly shoddy pieces of propaganda I’d ever read out of DHS. I couldn’t believe it was real."

This report could just as easily been written by J. Edgar Hoover or John Mitchell in the 1960s-70s by inserting blackpower, civil rights and peace for "antigovernment," "white supremacist," and "rightwing extremist" groups.

Cheney Can Go Now

Update II: GOP to Cheney: Please go away (Alex Koppelman)

Update: See also How dare you criticize this man? (Joan Walsh) and The outrageous offenses against Richard Cheney (Glenn Greenwald).

On matters of national security, Dick Cheney has all the credibility of a serial arsonist volunteering to be the office fire warden.

But Cheney now offers his McCarthyesque assessment of President Obama's performance on national security (after almost 60 days in office), Iraq and sundry other disasters of the Bush-Cheney administration. In sum, according to Cheney, they did well and Obama is doing badly.

'(Obama) is making some choices that, in my mind, will, in fact, raise the risk to the American people of another attack,' Mr. Cheney said of Mr. Obama in an interview on the CNN program 'State of the Union.' [Sulzberger, NYT]

Cheney and his fellow destroy-America-first crowd ought to slink away and spare us their continued lies and fear mongering.

As for Obama, there's much Bush-Cheney damage to repair, but how about retiring that ridiculous Homeland Security color-coded threat level system. Just ditch this relic of an administration that lived on instilling fear to wield its control over this country for eight years.

Returning to the 1950s-60s duck-and cover civil defence system makes about as much sense as retaining the color-coded threat level system, and the politics of fear should be acknowledged as such and then publicly discarded by Obama.

Madisonians Rayburn and Rothschild Break Major Story on Secret US Gov Program

Update: FBI Response to The Progressive Article Alleging the FBI Authorizes InfraGard Members to “Shoot to Kill” [- this is what is called a long non-denial denial -]

Lee Rayburn, one of the most engaging radio hosts in America - The Mic, 92.1 FM (Madison, Wisconsin) - talked to an acquaintance some months back who told him that a U.S. government agency was involved in deputizing businesses' principals in a secret program to be activated in the event of a national emergency.

Rayburn has an ear for a good story; and the source seemed credible, so he mentioned the bare facts on his morning radio show broadcast out of Madison.

Rayburn said he wondered about the facts and treated the matter with due skepticism; but he was disturbed by one aspect: The civilian shoot-to-kill with immunity element of the program. Smells like ... fascism.

Turns out Rayburn is on to something. The program is called InfraGard.

Rayburn also mentioned the story to Matt Rothschild, editor of Madison's The Progressive Magazine.

After a lengthy investigation and rigorous fact checking, Rothschild authored a piece entitled: The FBI Deputizes Business, the March cover story.

Writes Rothschild:

Today, more than 23,000 representatives of private industry are working quietly with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. The members of this rapidly growing group, called InfraGard, receive secret warnings of terrorist threats before the public does—and, at least on one occasion, before elected officials. In return, they provide information to the government, which alarms the ACLU. But there may be more to it than that. One business executive, who showed me his InfraGard card, told me they have permission to “shoot to kill” in the event of martial law. InfraGard is “a child of the FBI,” says Michael Hershman, the chairman of the advisory board of the InfraGard National Members Alliance and CEO of the Fairfax Group, an international consulting firm.

During a period in American history unsurpassed in secrecy, political vindictiveness, corruption and erosion of civil liberties, I recommend giving Rothschild's piece a good read.