Senate GOP Blocks Domestic Terrorism Bill

[Kid Berwyn]

Link to tweet

After Racist Massacre in Buffalo, Senate GOP Blocks Domestic Terrorism Bill

"There are a lot of MAGA Republicans for whom no amount of gun violence... will ever, ever convince them to take any action," said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.

JAKE JOHNSON
CommonDreams.Org, May 26, 2022

Less than two weeks after a white supremacist gunned down 10 Black people at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, Senate Republicans on Thursday blocked legislation aimed at combating domestic terrorism in the United States—specifically the growing threat posed by neo-Nazis and white nationalists.

The final vote on the House-passed legislation was 47-47, with every Senate Republican in attendance voting no. At least 60 yes votes were needed to overcome the filibuster and advance to a final vote on the bill.

Every Senate Democrat who cast a vote supported the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act, which proposed ensuring that federal agencies have the resources needed to detect and prevent "acts of domestic terrorism and white supremacist and neo-Nazi infiltration of law enforcement and corrections agencies."

CONTINUES…

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/05/26/after-racist-massacre-buffalo-senate-gop-blocks-domestic-terrorism-bill

So, why is it that we Democrats can’t end the filibuster, only Republicans?

One of my beefs about that is that it has gotten them 3 Putin-approved picks on the Supreme Court, all pro-NRA gunhumpers, if not openly White Power advocates.

[Kid Berwyn]

3. GOP fired US government experts fighting RW hate in 2009.

Why We Don't Know Much About Right-Wing Terrorists

Conservatives Fired The Guy Studying Them in 2009



Why Don’t We Know Much About Right-Wing Terrorists?

Conservatives Fired The Guy Studying Them

JAMESON PARKER
AddictingInfo, JUNE 18, 2015 4:41 PM

After a mass shooting at a historically black church in Charleston, South Carolina, left nine people dead and a right-wing white supremacist arrested, the country once again faces the uneasy question of just how many so-called “home-grown” terrorists are out there – heavily armed, ideologically driven, and violent.

It’s a good question, but it may be tough to answer because for reasons that are astoundingly dimwitted, the Department of Homeland Security pushed out the guy who was in charge of watching them, and dismantled his team all the way back in 2009.

The beleaguered hero of this story is Daryl Johnson, a top government counterterrorism analyst working at Homeland Security who spent six years with the agency amassing a wealth of data on far-right extremist groups that posed various degrees of threat to citizens in the United States. In 2009, in the months after President Obama assumed office, he watched as these groups veered even further right, and began to fear that America’s first African-American president could be the catalyst of a major uptick in hate crimes and anti-government attacks.

In a landmark report released just months into Obama’s term, and now looks downright clairvoyant, Johnson made the case that radical Islam is only a small piece of the terrorism pie:

“Do not overlook other types of terrorist groups,” the report warned, noting that five purely domestic groups had considered using weapons of mass destruction in that period. Similar warnings have been issued by the two principal non-government groups that track domestic terrorism: the New York-based Anti-Defamation League and the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center.

An annual tally by the latter group of what it calls “Terror From the Right” listed 13 major incidents and arrests last year, nearly double the annual number in previous years; the group also reported the number of hate groups had topped 1,000 in 2010, for the first time in at least two decades.

In response to that report, Johnson was destroyed. It wasn’t his integrity or claims that got him in trouble, his facts were solid. Instead, it was the inconvenient truth that much of the threat comes from right-wing conservatives, and even more awkwardly, radical right-wing conservatives who say and think a lot of the same things mainstream right-wing conservatives say and think.

CONTINUED w/links...

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2015/06/18/why-dont-we-know-much-about-right-wing-terrorists-conservatives-fired-the-guy-studying-them/

That was from 2015.

Internet Archive Waybac, if link doesn’t work:

http://web.archive.org/web/20150910045015/http://www.addictinginfo.org/2015/06/18/why-dont-we-know-much-about-right-wing-terrorists-conservatives-fired-the-guy-studying-them/

Absolutely been their people since Lee’s surrender at Appomattox.

[crickets]

12. Excellent article. It's unreal that DHS allows this to continue to fester.

DHS’s caution or avoidance, as its critics claim, may partly stem from worries that aggressive intelligence operations could be seen as civil liberties violations. A DHS official explained that “unlike international terrorism, there are no designated domestic terrorist groups. Subsequently, all the legal actions of an identified extremist group leading up to an act of violence are constitutionally protected and not reported on by DHS.”

There is a certain point past which the Constitution does not protect hate speech. Regarding the purported hesitance to monitor and report on these groups - oh, please. It's insulting to pretend there aren't umpteen government agencies monitoring and reporting the hell out of all of us.

https://www.lawyers.com/legal-info/criminal/does-the-first-amendment-protect-hate-speech.html

The First Amendment doesn’t give people the right to make direct, personal threats of immediate violence. This can include intimidating symbolic actions like burning a cross that are meant to make specific victims fear for their lives, even if the cross-burners don’t actually plan to carry through with the threat (Virginia v. Black, 538 U.S. 343 (2003)). [snip]

As the law stands now, government (including public colleges and universities) generally can’t bar hate speech unless it’s direct, personal, and either truly threatening or violently provocative. At the same time, laws against hate crimes don’t violate the First Amendment, because they’re based on actions rather than expressions of an opinion (Wisconsin v. Mitchell, 508 U.S. 476 (1993)).

As for the lack of designated domestic terrorist groups, it's well past time to start designating them. The SPLC could help out with that.

https://www.splcenter.org/issues/hate-and-extremism

The SPLC is the premier U.S. organization monitoring the activities of domestic hate groups and other extremists – including the Ku Klux Klan, white nationalists, the neo-Nazi movement, antigovernment militias and others.

We track more than 1,600 extremist groups operating across the country. We publish investigative reports, train law enforcement officers and share key intelligence, and offer expert analysis to the media and public.

- Hate Map: There are 733 hate groups currently operating in the US. [snip]
- Extremist Files: A database on prominent extremist groups and individuals
- 100 Days in Trump's America: A report on white nationalists and their agenda to infiltrate the mainstream
- Terror From The Right: A synopsis of radical-right terrorist plots, conspiracies and racist rampages since the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. It includes a roster of murdered law enforcement officials.

[Novara]

2. Of course they did.

They want race war in this country because they think they'll win.

[Kid Berwyn]

6. Testicle Tanner Tucker called White Supremacy "a hoax" after El Paso massacre.

“Not a real problem for America,” the little weenie dog whistled in 2019:

Tucker Carlson calls white supremacy "a hoax" after El Paso shooting

Rebecca Falconer
Axioms, Aug. 17, 2019

Fox News host Tucker Carlson claimed on his show "'Tucker Carlson Tonight" Tuesday that white supremacy is a "hoax" and "actually not a real problem in America."

Why it matters: A racist manifesto complaining about a "Hispanic invasion" was posted online by a writer identified as the suspected gunman before the El Paso mass shooting Saturday. Per Axios' Jim VandeHei and Sara Fischer, white-extremist active shooters in the U.S. were responsible for 65 deaths in 7 episodes in the past 18 months.

Context: Trump has been labeled a racist for his divisive rhetoric on migrants and lawmakers of color. Such claims have escalated since the El Paso massacre.

Notably, Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke said Sunday that the president is a "white nationalist" who is "encouraging" more racism and violence in the U.S.
The big picture: While the writer of the racist 8chan post stressed that the views he expressed predated Trump's presidency, CNN analysis of Trump campaign Facebook ads shows the word "invasion" was used approximately 2,200 times.

Some Fox News hosts have come in for criticism following the El Paso shooting. According to the liberal nonprofit Media Matters for America, there have been more than 70 references on the influential network this year to an invasion of migrants and at least 55 clips of Trump calling the surge of migrants an invasion.


Source: https://www.axios.com/2019/08/07/tucker-carlson-calls-white-supremacy-rise-hoax

Tucker Carlson has not toned down the stochastic whistling one bit.

[librechik]

4. Schumer needs to answer for no action on the filibuster.

Cowardly democrats need to step up! Fuck that antique relic! And yes, I'm talking about the folks in the Senate of Paralysis.

[Wednesdays]

5. Talk to Manchin and Sinema.

It's not Chuck Schumer that's the problem.

[Kid Berwyn]

7. He is their Leader.

Sen. Schumer could make them an offer they can’t refuse.

[librechik]

9. There are things Schumer could do to those two. Take them off their committees, stop sending cash

to their campaigns from the Democratic Party coffers , the list goes on I'm sure.

Look what Republicans did to Liz Cheney when she wouldn't obey party leaders.

Schumer has been playing marbles when everyone has lost their marbles. He just lets those two traitors laugh and kick us in the teeth then take a tour around all the bases, high fiving all their Republican friends.
We have crap leadership with no message in the Senate Meanwhile Pelosi passes bill after bill in the House that die on Schumer's desk.

Do something for gods sake! The clock is ticking!

[Kid Berwyn]

11. I've been a Schumer supporter since he investigated BCCI...

…money laundering, etc. as a Rep and as a Senator.

Perhaps his efforts to unite the Party to get work done are undermined by the Big Money that backs Sinema and Manchin.

To solve the problems our nation faces requires we end the filibuster.

[Irish_Dem]

8. The GOP needs violent white males to act as foot soldiers in their war against America.

They are the new Gestapo and Storm Troopers.

[Kid Berwyn]

13. Exactly so. "When do we get to use the guns?"

A man at a local event by Turning Points USA asked, just hours after the Boise Towne Square shooting, asked Charlie Kirk when he would get to start killing political opponents.



‘When do we get to use the guns?’ The police should be able to take that guy’s guns.

BY BRYAN CLARK
The Idaho Statesman, OCTOBER 28, 2021

Excerpt…

The main speaker was Charlie Kirk, the co-founder of Turning Points. Kirk’s hucksterism is obvious. He is a traveling salesman at heart.

Snip…

According to the nonprofit organization’s tax filings, Kirk was paid about $330,000 last year. Turning Points reported earning about $10.3 million from fundraising events, more than a quarter of its total revenue for 2020.

Snip…

The man, claiming the state had fallen into tyranny, asked Kirk: “When do we get to use the guns?” — to applause and cheers from many in the audience.

Then, to remove any doubt that this aspiring Brownshirt wasn’t being metaphorical or facetious but was, in fact, asking when to start murdering political opponents, he continued: “That’s not a joke. I’m not saying it like that. I mean, literally, where is the line? How many elections are they going to steal before we kill these people?”

Kirk did not respond with a simple message like: “Terrorism is wrong. You shouldn’t do it.” Instead, he cast political violence as a tactical blunder. It would play into the hand of the same hidden media-deepstate-Democrat forces trying to institute tyranny by installing Joe Biden as president, he claimed.

Continues…

https://www.idahostatesman.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/article255354321.html

[Irish_Dem]

14. If they want to fight so bad, they should help Ukraine.

Of course they are cowards and want to shoot children.