Does anyone want to take any responsibility for this?
The unprecedented number of death threats against President Obama, a rise in racist hate groups, and a new wave of antigovernment fervor threaten to overwhelm the US Secret Service, according to government officials and reports, raising new questions about the 144-year-old agency’s overall mission.
The Secret Service is tracking a far broader range of possible threats to the nation’s leaders, the officials said, even as it also investigates financial crimes such as counterfeiting as part of its original mandate.
The new demands are leading some officials, both inside and outside the agency, to raise the possibility of the service curtailing or dropping its role in fighting financial crime to focus more on protecting leaders and their families from assassination attempts and thwarting terrorist plots aimed at high-profile events.
Is it any wonder that the White House is taking on FOX News?
Just deny it’s really happening, like Michael Steele. There, that was easy…
I would be interested in seeing this done at state- and precinct-level…
they need more money and agents.
and maybe one specific division to handle death threats.
i’ve been saying this for awhile – it’s time for them to drop the hammer on these mofos…if they twitch wrong, take them out
Fully, enthusiastically agreed. While I am all for people talking about revolution, that comes with two caveats. First, actually conspiring or inciting others to commit violence should be treated as a very serious crime with commensurate penalties. Second, once you do actually start plotting a violent revolution — and there are certainly legitimate occasions to do so — there is no room to complain when the establishment crushes you like a bug. In short, revolution is not a fucking game. Those who treat it like one should be made examples of to discourage the other loons.
As far as death threats go, I think the people who make them, if convicted, should do at least as much time as armed robbers, which is to say seven to ten years. And that’s irrespective of the target of their threats, as it is no less deleterious to our democracy to have ordinary political dissenters subjected to death threats than it is to direct them at elected officials.
And if someone is caught actually assembling arms, much less traveling to their destination, to commit a political assassination, they should never see the light of day again.
The great part is when the inevitible happens and somebody is hurt or even killed, it will be Obama’s fault, the USSS’s fault, the Democrats’ fault…but never the Pretty Hate Machine’s fault.
Nope.
No…and they set up a false equivalency by saying there were just as many crazed people who said mean things about Bush. Okay, Code Pink ladies with fake blood on their hands, but I don’t think there was ever a serious threat to the life of Pres. Bush.
but I don’t think there was ever a serious threat to the life of Pres. Bush.
Wrong!! It was those pesky Russians!! Or one of the former Soviet Republics. If you remember the guy with the grenade. I forget all the details of it but the guy never got close enough. That was the nearest I ever remember.
.
The Georgian Interior Ministry unveiled photos of a young man on July 18 who, as the law enforcers announced, was wanted for allegedly throwing a hand-grenade into a crowd, about 30 meters away from the site from where U.S. President Bush was addressing thousands of Georgians on the Freedom Square in Tbilisi on May 10, 2005.
The hand grenade appeared to be a live device that failed to function, according to the statement made by FBI, which cooperated with the Georgian law enforcers to investigate the case.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."I do worry about the Secret Service’s ability to track all the crazies.
Those that do not overtly raise red flags or are being fed the hate garbage by people like Beck and Limbaugh but, don’t express their inner thoughts.
I read the other day that James Carville’s group did a study on rightwing teabaggers. They found them apart from the rest of the spectrum from left to right. And they see the government in conspiracy terms like new world order. They actually believe that Obama is puppet installed in a secret plan to destroy the country and his mission is to take it down economically and install a new socialist order.
They really believe this.
So, the junk Beck feeds them is just fueling what they already have rolling around in their heads.
They see Fox as their leader. Beck as their God.
for real.
There is a new game out on the web called Civil War 2011. It’s about toppling the evil Obama and his forces and the freedom fighters like Palin who are the true patriots and out to save America.
This was on Orcinus tonight.
You’re absolutely correct about this being a new, or let’s say massive growth of the anti-UN new-world-order believers that aren’t specifically republicans or democrats.
A semi-weirdo I’m acquainted with sent me a link to Kevin Trudeau’s radio website, and I’ve been following it every week or two and learned a lot about this movement, who’s in it, and what they believe is coming. Also, as Nate Silver and others have noted, many of them were part of the Ron Paul campaign effort. Alex Jones (producer of The Obama Deception) is a big hero in that crowd too.
Or at least, that’s the more “educated” segment of the teabaggers, the ones who can actually articulate some sort of argument explaining why they’re upset and what their objectives are. Most of the coverage I’ve seen of the ‘bagger protests leads me to assume that the bulk of them are just ignorant, unfocused, and caught up in something they find entertaining. And looking for an excuse to buy more guns and ammo.
Richard Poplawski, the man who shot three police officers in Pittsburg, was a big fan of Alex Jones.
Alex Jones is rightwinger, albeit of the libertarian sort, but he attempts to portray himself as above the political fray and attacks both parties. Most of the conspiracy theorists that Jones appeals to are rightwingers but they’re often the blue collar types who — for various reasons — lack a party.
They are the “paranoid” element that Richard Hofstadter talked about in his seminal essay — “The Paranoid Style of American Politics.” Alex Jones is a quintessential paranoid type, although he’s in it for the power and popularity he garners from his followers, who eat up the conspiracy theory stuff.
When those methheads in Denver didn’t get busted for plotting an assassination last year the message was sent. This official half-stepping gave a signal to the violent right that the game was on.
But why would the agency charged with protecting the President publicly say, “Gee, we’re having problems with all these threats”? May I suggest that this is a means of keeping a leash on the President. He’s not in control of the government and this is a way of reminding him that he’s not.
Baiting the ignorant into doing something stupid so that they can justifiably be taken out?
maybe it was a little premature to scrap the so-called ‘Bush Doctrine’….
My argument being: those who wish death to the President don’t need to be treated like American Citizens, falling under the protections of ‘presumed innocence’ or ‘due process’. God only knows, they wouldn’t extend them to us…
Find them, mark them, gather the evidence, and act…no more sitting-on-the-hands crap–don’t give them the time they need to make another fertilizer bomb like that in OK city, or get/use a Barrett -.50 long-range sniper rifle–the kind that can kill you through an engine block
Just arrest and shoot anyone the Secret Service accuses?
I guess you got that idea because the Secret Service’s initials are SS.
Partly in snark, partly serious…
There’s a fine line to tread between ‘threat mitigation’ and ‘summary execution’. I was a tad young for the JFK assassination, but remember RFK and MLK, and believe that if there could be a (legal) proactive means of finding and stopping these killers, the Secret Service would be using it right now.
Sometimes, though, one has no choice but to wait for the snake to move before you can stop it…and by then it may be too late.
I just don’t want to see another man I respect highly cut down before his time by a hateful flake…
I’ve been following your occasional posts on this subject and wondering the whole time why they don’t just expand the Secret Service budget and train enough more agents to deal with the threat.
Why have they not (apparently) taken this obvious step? Does it literally require an act of Congress, or what?
well, yes, it does require an act of Congress.
Not necessarily. Secret Service falls under DHS. They could comfortably justify the transfer of other budgeted funds for other DHS projects to the Secret Service if they felt it appropriate. I wouldn’t be surprised if Janet Napolitano hasn’t already done this.
But going forward, they probably need to raise the budget for Secret Service. And maybe they should take away the counterfeit detection duties and put them back under the Treasury Department where they belong. Just have Secret Service be a security organization.
There’s alway more to the phenomenon but I’m not disagreeing that demagogues are responsible with fomenting violence. I tried to develop a picture of the psycho-dynamics involved in the following post.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2009/10/7/112148/154#5
I’ll digress freely here and let others to agree or disagree with what I have to say.
Much of the hater phenomenon is identical to the poor, Southern white racist phenomenon, which we saw expressed in how poorly Obama did in the border states. It’s just as fully a Deep Southern phenomenon but a key difference between the two is the level of insecurity that whites feel. Moreover, it’s certainly not limited to the South.
Look at the comparison I made between David Paul Kuhn’s “forgotten voter” and and the “conspiracy theorist” in Richard Hofstadter’s “The Paranoid Style of American Politics.” This is not a stretch, they are the same — although I’m certainly not saying that every white voter who’s been mobilized by a feeling of powerlessness becomes a wild-eyed conspiracy theorist ready to take up arms. The conditions are the same however, and there’s considerable overlap in the attitudes, which are essentially the same thing. Different people find different outlets for their aggression and their expression of discontent varies in its form and content.
KUHN:
HOFSTADTER:
Now look at the type of individual responsible political crimes in the recent past (all are alleged, which I’ll usually omit for the sake of convenience).
Jim David Atkisson — church shooter:
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2008/jul/29/suspects-note-cites-liberal-movement-church-attack/
Richard Poplawski, shoots police:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/05/us/05pittsburgh.html?_r=1
James Von Brunn, holocaust museum shooter:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/10/AR2009061003495.html?sid=ST200906120
0050
Scott Roeder, shoots abortion doctor:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/02/us/02tiller.html?pagewanted=all
There are many caveats I could make but we can still adopt a general view and reach some (reasonably) valid conclusions. For instance, economic problems are present for all of these accused killers. Economic problems even account for the killings at the American Civic Association, for which Jiverly Wong (or Voong) is accused.
http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local-beat/4-Shot-at-Civic-Association-At-Least-40-Held-Hostage.html
Contrasting Wong’s case with the others, Wong has many of the same problems but lacked a ready rationalization to account for his problems whereas the others have the ubiquitous rightwing sources of anti-government diatribe fomenting their hatred and directing them towards violence.
Roeder’s wife’s comments are particularly interesting. She states that:
Roeder’s act seems deeply ideological on the surface but further examination reveals something closer to ideological window shopping.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/06/brief-history-radical-right
Another element that’s commonly present, in Roeder’s case and the others, is racism.
Racism is clearly present in the Republican coalition, whether overtly or in the form of Modern/Symbolic Racism. The question of whether Republican politicians are racists themselves seems to miss the point. It’s clear that many Republican politicians have appealed to racists whether or not they were racists themselves. And Lee Atwater’s last words on the subject make it clear that political messages were calculated with the underlying racist appeal in mind.
Along with this racism, there is a clear rightwing authoritarian (RWA) orientation present in all these cases.
http://the-wawg-blog.org/?p=92
Seeing the problem through a rightwing authoritarian lens is the best way of understanding the problem. Aggression against outgroups is part and parcel of rightwing authoritarianism but most RWAs don’t act because they are followers. The essential ingredient of RWA violence is the call to arms by Double-High RWAs. Certain conditions must be present to provide fertile ground for these Double-High RWAs, such as economic downturn (which we have), or a loss of esteem, such as that suffered during the post-W.W.I period in Germany. By all measures, Fertile conditions
now exist for RWA violence.
The fascists will go after Hillary first. She’s an easier target, and the kill sends the same message. Plus they hate her.