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Conspiracy-Fueled Anti-Government Patriot Groups Explode With Anti-Obama Hatred

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The number of conspiracy-fueled anti-government “patriot” groups has increased more than 900% since President Barack Obama‘s election in 2008, growing from 149 to 1360. These groups are all anti-Obama, many are paramilitary and militia hate groups. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks them, calls the growth “explosive” and notes they’ve “reached an all-time high.”

“As President Obama enters his second term with an agenda of gun control and immigration reform, the rage on the right is likely to intensify,” the SPLC reports:

For many, the election of America’s first black president symbolizes the country’s changing demographics, with the loss of its white majority predicted by 2043. (In 2011, for the first time, non-white births outnumbered the births of white children.

The Southern Poverty Law Center notes the patriot movement “generally believes that the federal government is conspiring to take Americans’ guns and destroy their liberties as it paves the way for a global ‘one-world government,'” and adds “in the wake of the mass murder of 26 children and adults at a Connecticut school and the Obama-led gun control efforts that followed, it seems likely that that growth will pick up speed once again.”

“Even before the Dec. 14 shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School, gun and ammunition sales shot up in the wake of the re-election of the country’s first black president, the result of shrill conspiracy theories about Obama’s secret plans to confiscate Americans’ guns,” reports the SPLC’s Mark Potok:

When the killings actually did spark gun control efforts that clearly had not been in the Obama administration’s plans, the reaction on the political right was so harsh that it seemed to border on hysteria.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) proposed a law that would nullify any executive gun control actions by Obama, accusing the president of having a “king complex.” U.S. Rep. Trey Radel (R-Fla.) said the president could be impeached for those actions. State lawmakers in Arizona, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee proposed laws that sought to prevent federal gun control from applying to their states.

Richard Mack, a former Arizona sheriff who sued the Clinton administration over the Brady Bill’s imposition of background checks on gun buyers, claimed that of 200 sheriffs he’d met with, most “have said they would lay down their lives first rather than allow any more federal control.” Matt Barber of the anti-gay Liberty Counsel said he feared that the nation, which he described as already on the brink of civil unrest, was headed for “a second civil war.” “Freedom ends. Tyranny begins,” tweeted Fox News Radio host Todd Starnes. “Get ready,” TeaParty.org said. “Right now government gun grabbing plans are being covertly organized.”

“MARTIAL LAW IN THE UNITED STATES IS NOW A VERY REAL POSSIBILITY!” added the ConservativeDaily.com’s Tony Adkins, responding to Obama’s use of executive orders to further gun control with a doomsday prediction that could have come straight from the Patriot movement. “SUSPENSION OF THE U.S. CONSTITUTION IS A VERY REAL POSSIBILITY!” The Conservative Monster, a similar website, concluded that the president was conspiring with a variety of foreign enemies “to force Socialism on the American people.”

The Daily Beast compiled this Storify account of how conservatives reacted to President Obama’s call for solutions to the gun violence epidemic in January:

 
[View the story “Conservatives React” on Storify]
 

The Southern Poverty Law Center concludes:

Now, it seems likely that the radical right’s growth will continue. In 2012, before Obama’s re-election and the Newtown, Conn., massacre, the rate of Patriot growth had slackened somewhat, although it remained significant. Anger over the idea of four more years under a black, Democratic president — and, even more explosively, the same kinds of gun control efforts that fueled the militia movement of the 1990s — seems already to be fomenting another Patriot spurt.

Even before the election last year, self-described Patriots sounded ready for action. “Our Federal Government is just a tool of International Socialism now, operating under UN Agendas not our American agenda,” the United States Patriots Union wrote last year in a letter “sent to ALL conservative state legislators, all states.” “This means that freedom and liberty must be defended by the states under their Constitutional Balance of Power, or we are headed to Civil War wherein the people will have no choice but to take matters into their own hands.”

Image via Southern Poverty Law Center

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News

Marjorie Taylor Greene Delivers Demands to Johnson as Her Three-Person Posse Weakens

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May 7, 2024

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Under her threat to call up her motion to oust Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) met with the Louisiana Republican for several hours on Monday, delivering her list of demands, while knowing that Democrats have vowed to ensure her efforts to have him removed will fail.

Congresswoman Greene, a far-right extremist and self-proclaimed Christian nationalist, tried to build a faction of disaffected House Republicans but only two other GOP lawmakers have signed on to her “motion to vacate.” One of them, Christian nationalist U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) did not show for her Monday meeting.

At the top of Greene’s list of demands is ending all aid to Ukraine, according to Punchbowl News. The second item is defunding Special Counsel Jack Smith’s criminal investigations into Donald Trump. And lastly, promising to adhere to the so-called “Hastert Rule,” putting on the floor for a vote only legislation that is supported by the majority of the Republican majority.

“Of course, the Senate would never take this up, and President Joe Biden would never sign any such bill including this provision if it somehow landed on his desk. Senior House Republicans privately admit this,” Punchbowl News reports.

READ MORE: Judge Hands Trump ‘Incarceration’ Threat as Experts Say Next Time He’ll Toss Him in Jail

Calling these maneuvers “cosplay” and “mostly theater,” Punchbowl notes: “Greene doesn’t really see those political realities as hurdles — or care. She wants to cause legislative crises and get media coverage.”

Johnson has the support of Donald Trump, along with, for now, the support of House Democrats including Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

Greene and her number two supporter, U.S. Rep. Tim Massie (R-KY), possibly with Congressman Gosar – whose support for Greene’s motion to vacate appears to be wavering – are expected to meet again with Speaker Johnson on Tuesday.

The Guardian reports some observers are “suggesting the Georgia congresswoman is looking for an off-ramp,” and adds that Greene’s “lunchtime summit” could “finally offer clarity” on whether she “still intends to press ahead with her drive to oust speaker Mike Johnson, or accept a face-saving alternative that would give the impression of a win.”

Gosar’s apparent wavering has not gone unnoticed.

Punchbowl News’ Mica Soellner reports: “Rep. Paul Gosar tells me he’s still very much behind the MTV [motion to vacate] effort and missed today’s meeting due to a flight delay.”

READ MORE: Trump Threatens to Violate Gag Order and Go to Jail: ‘I’ll Do That Sacrifice Any Day’

He told Soellner: “If Marjorie wanted me to come, I would’ve been there.”

She notes Gosar did not commit to attending Tuesday’s meeting.

Meanwhile, from the non-Greene side of the House Republican conference, Fox News’ Chad Pergram reports on comments made by U.S. Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE).

Citing his Fox News colleague Brianna O’Neil’s reporting, he writes (not direct quotes): “GOP NE Rep Bacon on Greene’s efforts to remove Johnson: We don’t like it. We’d be angry about it because all it does is weaken all of us. And it’s it’s like 2 or 3 people working for the other side of the aisle…it appears to us, you know, the other side shooting this also foot right now over all the campus stuff. Joe Biden’s polling at 36%, the lowest of any president going back to 1952. So why jump in the way of that? And we’ve got 2 or 3 people are doing that. And it’s just a tactical and strategically. It’s not smart.”

Last week, Congresswoman Greene held a news conference and vowed to call up her motion to vacate, “next week, absolutely.”

On Monday, Greene alleged a “deal” has been made between Johnson and Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi.

READ MORE: ‘I’m Not Talking About That Meeting’: Noem Implies She May Have Met With Kim Jong Un

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OPINION

Trump Threatens to Violate Gag Order and Go to Jail: ‘I’ll Do That Sacrifice Any Day’

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18 hours ago

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May 6, 2024

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Just hours after a New York State Supreme Court Justice held Donald Trump in criminal contempt of court for violating his gag order and threatened him with jail time, the ex-president attacked several of the judges overseeing his cases, and suggested he may violate the gag order for the good of the U.S. Constitution.

“Because this judge has given me a gag order and says you’ll go to jail if you violate it. And frankly, you know what, our Constitution is much more important than jail. It’s not even close. I’ll do that sacrifice any day,” Trump claimed.

Trump is on trial for 34 criminal felonies for falsification of business records, which experts describe as election interference after he paid “hush money” to an adult film actress in an effort to keep his alleged affair away from the public eye just before the 2016 presidential election.

The ex-president, who announced his 2024 run for the White House, insiders say, to escape prosecution for a wide variety of alleged crimes, began his Monday post-trial news conference with reporters by criticizing the prosecution’s announcement it expects to wrap up its portion of the trial in about two weeks.

READ MORE: ‘Israel Aid, Ukraine Aid, Kitchenaid’: Dem Mocks GOP’s ‘Hands Off Our Appliances’ Week

“The government just said that they want two to three more weeks,” Trump complained. “That means they want to get me off the [campaign] trail for two to three more weeks. Now, anybody in there would realize that there’s no case, they don’t have a case. Every legal scholar says they don’t have a case. This is just a political witch. It’s election interference. And this is really truly election interference, and it’s a disgrace. It’s a disgrace, and in every poll I’m leading by a lot.”

Those statements are false.

The New York Post reports, “Prosecutor Josh Steinglass estimated that the DA’s office would wrap up its case around May 21, two weeks from tomorrow. But he cautioned that’s a ‘rough estimate.'”

Concluding the District Attorney’s Office did have a case, a Manhattan grand jury indicted Trump on 34 felony counts.

A great many legal scholars say there is a case.

There is no evidence of a “political witch-hunt.”

Trump is not leading in all the polls, nor, in all the ones he is leading in, is he leading by “a lot.” Nor do political candidates get exempt from prosecution because they may be leading in a particular poll.

The ex-president went on to claim prosecutors “figure maybe they can do something here, maybe they can do, this case should be over, this case should have never been brought.”

“And then Alvin Bragg brought the case, as soon as, when I’m running and leading, that’s when they decided, let’s go bring a case. So it’s a disgrace. But we just heard two to three more weeks. I thought that we’re finished today and they are finished today. We look at what’s happening. I thought they were going to be finished today and then 2 to 3 more weeks,” he again complained, again saying prosecutors “all want to keep me off the campaign trail. That’s all this is about. This about election interference. How do we stop it? And it’s a disgrace.”

READ MORE: ‘I’m Not Talking About That Meeting’: Noem Implies She May Have Met With Kim Jong Un

Trump then brought up the gag order.

“Where I can basically, I have to watch every word I tell you people, you asked me a question, a simple question I’d like to give it but I can’t talk about it,” he claimed, falsely.

“Because this judge has given me a gag order and say you’ll go to jail if you violate it. And frankly, you know what, our Constitution is much more important than jail. It’s not even close. I’ll do that sacrifice any day.”

Trump attacked three of judges overseeing his case, excluding U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon.

“But what’s happening here is a disgrace and the appellate courts ought to get involved. New York looks so bad, system of so called justice was so bad between this judge and [Judge Arthur] Engoron and [Judge Lewis] Kaplan the triple teamed with the corrupt judges is a disgrace to our nation. So I should be out there campaigning.”

Watch Trump’s remarks below or at this link.

READ MORE: Congressman Pummeled for Praising Students Mocking Black Protester With Monkey Sounds

 

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OPINION

‘Israel Aid, Ukraine Aid, Kitchenaid’: Dem Mocks GOP’s ‘Hands Off Our Appliances’ Week

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21 hours ago

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May 6, 2024

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Last year in January, in the wake of a study that found 650,000 children have developed asthma because of gas stoves, Bloomberg News reported: “US Safety Agency to Consider Ban on Gas Stoves Amid Health Fears.”

There was no ban in the works or on the way, and the chair of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) was forced to issue a statement promising, “I am not looking to ban gas stoves and the CPSC has no proceeding to do so.”

Republicans however, went on the attack, with some, like U.S. Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX), a physician, shouting on social media, “I’ll NEVER give up my gas stove. If the maniacs in the White House come for my stove, they can pry it from my cold dead hands. COME AND TAKE IT!!”

Congressman Jackson soon doubled-down, appearing on Newsmax.

One month later, West Virginia Democratic U.S. Senator Joe Manchin teamed up with several Republicans to protect Americans’ “right” to non-electric cooking.

READ MORE: ‘I’m Not Talking About That Meeting’: Noem Implies She May Have Met With Kim Jong Un

“Gas stoves have been in the news lately and I’ve come out strongly against the Consumer Product Safety Commission pursuing any ban of gas stoves,” Manchin declared, despite there being no possibility of that. “In fact, I’m introducing legislation today with Senator [Ted] Cruz that would ensure that they don’t and separately sending a letter to the commission with Senator [James] Lankford.”

For decades the scientific community has known about the health dangers of gas stoves, but Americans love them and there are no plans to have any federal government agency coming to take them away.

The Biden administration would like to help Americans buy new, energy-saving home appliances, but Republicans oppose those efforts as well.

Nearly sixteen months later, Republicans are still working to protect Americans from what some have suggested will be the federal government knocking on the doors of U.S. citizens to take away their gas stoves.

Last month, Republican Speaker Mike Johnson was all set to revive the House’s focus on ensuring Americans can continue to grill baby grill – indoors – childhood asthma-be-damned, and nearly put HR 6192, the Hands Off Our Home Appliances Act, and several others on the floor for votes, including:

The “Liberty in Laundry Act” (HR 7673), the “Clothes Dryers Reliability Act (HR 7645), the “Refrigerator Freedom Act” (HR 7637), the “Affordable Air Conditioning Act” (HR 7626), and the “Stop Unaffordable Dishwasher Standards Act” (HR 7700).

But at the last minute he changed the schedule after aid to Ukraine and Israel became the national focus.

READ MORE: Judge Hands Trump ‘Incarceration’ Threat as Experts Say Next Time He’ll Toss Him in Jail

MSNBC’s Steve Benen reports Monday, “the ‘Hands Off Our Home Appliances Act’ … will likely reach the floor this week, possibly as early as tomorrow.”

One year ago this month, U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) delivered amusing remarks during a House hearing.

“I want to apologize on behalf of the Democratic Party that we have decided to put kids’ safety, in their neighborhoods from getting gunned down, in movie theaters, or grocery stores, or school churches, or synagogues – we as Democrats have clearly lost our way that we are not focused on appliances,” Moskowitz said sarcastically in a viral video.

Now he’s back, along with the House Republicans’ renewed focus on the false fear-mongering the federal government is coming for your home appliances, or is going to ban them.

In response to Axios’ Andrew Solender reporting, “Appliance Week is BACK in the House!” Congressman Moskowitz replied, “Israel aid, Ukraine aid, Humanitarian aid, Kitchenaid.”

He then grew even more sarcastically excited:

Watch the videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: Congressman Pummeled for Praising Students Mocking Black Protester With Monkey Sounds

 

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