Last Call For Here We Go Again, Day 7

The Bundy seditionists' call for backup has been heeded by one of the more nasty armed insurrection/white supremacist groups out there, Idaho's "Three Percent" movement.

Members of a group from outside Oregon arrived on Friday at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge to "secure a perimeter" around the compound and prevent "a Waco-style situation."

The arrival of the "3% of Idaho" was the latest development in the situation outside Burns, where an armed occupation of the refuge by an Ammon Bundy-led militant group entered its seventh day.

"They just keep an eye on everything that is going on" to make sure "nothing stupid happens," Bundy said Friday afternoon outside refuge headquarters.

"If they weren't here," Bundy said, referring to the Idaho group, "I'd worry" about a Waco-style siege by federal officials.

The group's website says it stands for "freedom, liberty and the Constitution. We will combat all those who are corrupt." The website displays the motto, "When Tyranny Becomes Law, Rebellion Becomes Duty!"

As Dave Neiwert reminds us, these assholes are pretty deep into Islamophobia and armed insurrection.  They marched against settling Syrian refugees in Twin Falls, Idaho in October and again in Boise in November and the real danger is of course these jagoffs are national.

The Idaho group is only the local affiliate of a broader (though hardly numerous) national movement that takes its name from the notion that only 3 percent of the people living in the colonies took part in the American Revolution – thus, the name is intended to invoke the would-be combatants in a “second American Revolution,” as its proponents like to proclaim.

The movement is largely the brainchild of Michael Vanderboegh, the onetime militiaman who in recent years has been specializing in incendiary rhetoric supporting the notion that any attempts at federal gun control will spark a new civil war, or better yet, a new revolution.

Indeed, just about any kind of federal action inspires such warnings from Vanderboegh. “The health care law carries … the hard steel fist of government violence at the center,” he declared after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. “If we refuse to obey, we will be fined. If we refuse to pay the fine, we will in time be jailed. If we refuse to report meekly to jail, we will be sent for by armed men. And if we refuse their violent invitation at the doorsteps of our own homes we will be killed — unless we kill them first.”

He also freely suggests imminent violence. A 2012 post at his blog, Sipsey Street Irregulars, titled “Vote,” advised going to the polls but added: “At least later on you can say you tried everything else before you were forced to shoot people in righteous self-defense of life and liberty.”

Ammon Bundy may say he doesn't want a conflict, but these Three Percent guys definitely do.  I'm very fearful that the government will give them what they want, or that they'll come and seek "suicide by federal agent" by opening fire.

So yes, this situation just got a whole lot worse.

Good Ol' Texas Haterade

What happens when Republicans' blind, racist hatred of President Obama and bigotry against Muslims is so extreme it actually causes them to break Federal law while in office? Let's ask Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and his sidekick Lt. Gov Dan Patrick, shall we?

Two Texas politicians made public details of an investigation into a terrorism suspect while it was still in progress, potentially jeopardizing the inquiry, three sources familiar with the matter said on Friday.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick released details from documents that were still under court seal, the sources said. A spokesman for Governor Abbott had no immediate comment. Patrick's office was not available for comment.

The suspect, Omar Faraj Saeed Al-Hardan, 24, appeared in court on Friday accused of providing material support to Islamic State overseas. He entered the United States as an Iraqi refugee in November 2009 and lived in Houston, according to a court document.

Abbott and Patrick are both Republicans and their party has been fiercely resisting Democratic President Barack Obama's plan to allow 10,000 Syrian refugees into the country over the next year, arguing that they pose a security risk to the United States. The Obama administration has rejected that assertion.

One of the sources said investigators believe Abbott and Patrick may have learned confidential details of the investigation from the Joint Terrorism Task Force in Texas. The group's members include local and state law enforcement officers. There was no immediate comment from the task force.

The sources said the politicians' statements on Thursday night disclosing a terrorism suspect's arrest forced federal authorities to wrap up their inquiries and rush out public statements and court papers on the case earlier than planned.

Willful obstruction of a federal investigation, sounds like.   They found out about the investigation from state law enforcement, and while keeping in mind both men are, you know, lawyers, they knowingly leaked this information under a court seal.

Ought to be fun to see what happens next, huh?

Hey Greg, worry less about your Confederate re-enactment fantasies and more about federal charges.

Cincy's Trump Cards

The Cincinnati Enquirer profiled several Trump supporters in the area to see why they prefer The Donald, and found they all have two things in common: they're white, and they're pissed off. People like Pam Fitzgerald, a retired teacher.

“I try to be as conservative as I can,” she said. “Because I know they were right.” 

So while she believes diversity makes America better and has no interest in closing its borders, she says officials have been too generous in allowing people in. She believes President Barack Obama wants to let all Muslims, regardless of their background, into the country. This is not a good thing, Fitzgerald says. 

She believes the military has shrunk under Obama. So when Trump says he will "make America great again," the campaign slogan struck a chord with Fitzgerald. 

She remembers the respect she was taught growing up. That doesn't mean she agrees with everything Trump says, but she likes that he is not afraid to say it – respectfully or not. 

There’s a fire in Trump she hasn't felt from a president before. 

"He's opened the doors,” Fitzgerald said, “for people to open their mouths."

And guys like Ed Kirker, who has spent 26 of his 46 years in the military.

Kirker explains his Trump support with a saying he frequently used in the military: “I’m an (expletive). Get over it.” 

He acknowledges Trump is flamboyant. To Kirker, this is part of his appeal. 

When Trump made a campaign stop in Columbus, Kirker volunteered. That night, Trump made waves by saying he would bring back waterboarding. The way Trump explained his position was an example of the “common sense” approach Kirker has come to love. 

In 1994, Kirker saw a man’s head chopped off inches in front of his face at the public Saudi Arabia market that is familiar to many as Chop-Chop Square. The man had been caught stealing. 

When other countries do this, what is wrong with waterboarding? That’s a question Kirker can’t get past. There are questions about how Trump avoided the draft during the Vietnam War, but Kirker believes he is a natural leader. 

A leader unafraid to say what he thinks. 

A leader unafraid to offend. 

A leader who could be president.

Or Kentucky Democrats like Larry Saunders, switching parties to the GOP to vote for Trump.

He worries about his wife and his two children when he is not around, even though Fort Wright is not a crime-ridden city. He believes top U.S. officials don’t know who is in America. He says Trump shouldn’t have singled out Muslims in comments about immigration, but agrees with his sentiment. He even takes it a step further. 

“I would say stop all immigration for a time,” Saunders said. 

He explains his thinking like this: “I wouldn’t let anybody into my house I don’t know.”
The United States should do the same, he said. Trump, he believes, will make sure that happens. 

As to Trump’s sometimes abrasive tone, Saunders says he didn’t know what tone meant until it was discussed in the media. But it was part of the reason he remained leery about Trump as a presidential candidate. 

Then he saw the polls. Trump was leading. 

“Maybe that’s the tone we need,” Saunders said.

That theory that you've heard that Trump actually had far more support than he's showing in the polls?  I'm starting to think maybe that's true.  I'm starting to think a lot of pissed off white folks are going to be voting for him in 2016.

If the rest of us don't show up, this asshole just might win.