The hate inside our borders - white supremacist opens fire at Holocaust Museum

Janet Napolitano proven right

yet nobody admits it.

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by: exfundie @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 14:08:47 PM CDT

I'm waiting for the haters

To come along and claim that this is in no way related to their irresponsible and hate filled rhetoric. Janet Napolitano needs to grow a spine and re-issue that report with zero changes.

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by: Margaret @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 14:19:19 PM CDT

From what I remember

Janet Napolitano was told to back down from the report by Pres. Obama, right?

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by: exfundie @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 15:25:40 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Even more reason to reissue it.

____________________________________
Cuius testiculos habes, habeas cardia et cerebellum.

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by: tavdy79 @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 16:09:51 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

wow

I wonder what Malkin would say about the DHS report now...  

Steve

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by: Stevious @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 14:26:52 PM CDT

I work just across the Mall from the Holocaust Museum...

What a nightmare.  People are leery of leaving work to go out in that melee.  Police, park police, capitol police, ambulances, tourists running every which way...  This is definitely far right-wing extremist terrorism.

The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States. - The U.S. Constitution Article IV.Section. 2. Clause 1

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by: Mbarber @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 14:30:30 PM CDT

Napolitano

She needs not just to re-issue the report, but to start tracking these nutballs down and arresting them regularly.  This old man was already put in jail once for breaking into the Federal Reserve offices in Washington, DC with loaded guns.

The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States. - The U.S. Constitution Article IV.Section. 2. Clause 1

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by: Mbarber @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 14:32:30 PM CDT

First Dr. Tiller, now this.

Two acts of horrific domestic terrorism in two weeks.  And these groups, or at least their enablers, are the ones Obama keeps trying to find "common ground" with, while he ignores us.  I hope he's really proud of himself for suppressing the Homeland Security report last month.  

When is this man going to wake up and realize that silence, much less attempts at accommodation, only emboldens these people?  Is it possible that our first black president really doesn't understand the nature of hate?

Cynic, n.  A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.  
-Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

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by: QScribe @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 14:33:29 PM CDT

Three acts of horrific domestic terrorism in two weeks.

First Dr. Tiller, then Pvt. Long.

"A 23-year-old Army private, William Andrew Long, was shot and killed outside a recruiting office this month in Arkansas and a fellow soldier was wounded. The suspect, a Muslim convert, has said he considers the killing justified because of the U.S. military presence in the Middle East."

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by: diablorobotico @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 16:50:10 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

And that's not to mention

the three cops who were shot by a right-wing loon here in Pittsburgh.

If Obama thinks this is going to stop, he's living in a science fiction universe.

Cynic, n.  A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.  
-Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

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by: QScribe @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 17:03:36 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

shooter's bio

http://www.holywesternempire.o...

James W. von Brunn holds a BachSci Journalism degree from a mid-Western university where he was president of SAE and played varsity football.

During WWII he served as PT-Boat captain, Lt. USNR, receiving a Commendation and four battle stars. For twenty years he was an advertising executive and film-producer in New York City. He is a member of Mensa, the high-IQ society.

In 1981 Von Brunn attempted to place the treasonous Federal Reserve Board of Governors under legal, non-violent, citizens arrest. He was tried in a Washington, D.C. Superior Court; convicted by a Negro jury, Jew/Negro attorneys, and sentenced to prison for eleven years by a Jew judge. A Jew/Negro/White Court of Appeals denied his appeal. He served 6.5 years in federal prison. (Read about von Brunn's "Federal Reserve Caper" HERE.) He is now an artist and author and lives on Maryland's Eastern Shore.

Tob Shebbe Goyim Harog is the culmination of his life's work.

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by: Pam Spaulding @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 14:40:11 PM CDT

He's a member of MENSA???

He sure as hell wouldn't be a member of Gulf Coast MENSA unless things have changed mightily in the past twenty years or so. We had voted more than one bigot out.

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by: Margaret @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 14:43:47 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

It would be very easy to find out

The membership list is open and available to other members. Once I remember my password is to the national site, I'll take a look.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même merde.

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by: TechBear @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 15:18:20 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

I can say for certainty: he is not a member

Not currently, at least: when a membership lapses, the person gets removed from the directory. I am absolutely certain, though, that there is no current member with a first name of James and a last name of von Brunn.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même merde.

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by: TechBear @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 15:21:30 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

My uncle in Texas is a member of MENSA - by far the

smartest man I know.  Except.  He is an unrepentant Bush/Cheney/Palin devotee.  Clearly, intelligence can be measured in many different ways.

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by: aggieric @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 19:27:59 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

A "Negro" jury, huh

That right there tells me what he probably thinks of the "homosexuals."

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by: kevinchi @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 14:55:28 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

MSNBC

reported a minute ago (I was typing and just sorta caught it) something about he was anti-Catholic and blacks as well.

But that all kinda goes part and parcel, doesn't it? Once one knows how to hate one group, it's so easy for these people to include other groups...

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by: Louise @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 15:14:28 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Drum Roll

"HOMOSEXUAL AGENDA!!!!!!!!!"

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by: bluegrassfool @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 14:52:26 PM CDT

see my update

You could see this kind of thing coming a mile away. The fringe movement, the ones who showed up at McCain/Palin rallies and Teabagging Parties and were proud to hang their bigotry on display, are in so much despair/anger, that it was only a matter of time before the rage exploded into action.  

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by: Pam Spaulding @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 14:53:16 PM CDT

My only question is would it have been worse if they'd won?

Cheney was taking us to the brink of a new Reich, but he was really only in it for the looting.  If McCain's masters had got Sarah Palin elected, would we now have right-wing gangs actually roaming our streets?

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by: diablorobotico @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 15:22:42 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

James von Brunn fans over at Stormfront

Over at Neo Nazi site Stormfront (no, I'm not linking directly - type in stormfront dot org and add "/forum/archive/index.php/t-56654.html"

This man sounds like a modern hero of our race!

Americans whites are very much oppressed when they must endure the bias and hatred of Negro juries and mad Jew judges.
It is an intolerable situation. Have we become idiotic that we allow this to happen?

Wish that the white race was more united and FIERCE and put an end to these grave offences. Also wished that we whites would manage to produce more offspring, offspring which serves our causes and not the global bankers and their global military machine.

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by: Pam Spaulding @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 14:56:55 PM CDT

Agreed

Not gonna link directly either but found this:

...Brunn, and there is a wealth of information about this man online.. he is apparently well known within white supremacist circles, many web pages can be found about him. Here is some information on the sad, sad man, who thankfully was not able to accomplish much today. All thoughts and prayers go to the guard who was injured in the shooting.

James W Von Brunn, Holocaust Museum Shooting Suspect

from his bio posted on askart.com:

"The von Brunn/Wenneker families migrated from Germany/Austria c. 1845, settling in St. Louis, Missouri. James von Brunn's father, Elmer, was superintendent of Scullin Steel Mill. During WWII he designed, and supervised a 40mm shell plant for the U.S. government in Houston, Texas.

His wife Hope Wenneker von Brunn, educated at Hosmer Hall, was a homemaker and accomplished pianist. They had two children, James (JvB) and Alyce. The family spent summer months at Piasa. Illinois, where JvB roamed the limestone bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River, hunted snakes and turtles in the willows along its banks, and collected Indian artifacts. His grandmother Wenneker (grossemutter) gave him an oil paint set for his 7th birthday. His inspiration to paint came from Scribner Illustrated Classics and painters such as Pyle, Schoonover, and Wyeth. But his painting, because of his love of athletics, was confined to days of inclement weather. During the hiatus between high school and college he hitchhiked through Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico."

Pity he didn't stick to painting...

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by: Louise @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 15:03:08 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

CNN is reporting that

he was a regular at Free Republic.  Big surprise, huh?

Cynic, n.  A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.  
-Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

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by: QScribe @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 15:17:39 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Next up on CNN: Researchers predict that the sun will rise in the east tomorrow morning.

(Insert eye-roll here.)

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même merde.

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by: TechBear @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 15:23:52 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Still the capacity to be shocked...

I'm old. Older attitudinally than even my birth certificate says.

For I'm old enough to remember when there seemed to be a more proactive sense in schools to instill the lesson of the horror of the Holocaust [victimizing gays was left out, of course].

And I was old enough to understand when JFK was shot and saw, via our TV, Lee Harvey Oswald shot as it happened.

I came home from school to see film of black and white civil rights demonstraters in the South being beaten earlier that day.

The first protest I participated in was against an appearance by George Wallace when he was running for President.

I picketed the Johnson White House on a Good Friday carrying a blowup of a photo of the My Lai massacre, and have been physically attacked in separate instances for being antiwar and for being gay. I've been fired and denied promotions for the latter.

I have slept on the wrong side of the Berlin Wall and walked hushed through the ghost-filled grounds of Dachau.

I watched the White Night Police Riot in the Castro from the roof of my apartment building.

I have buried most of my gay friends lost to AIDS while the government laughed.

I have visited this Holocaust Museum whose recognition of gay victims would outrage the putz in the New York legislature. It is a holy place, and, old and cyncial as I am, this still shocks me.

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by: Michael Bedwell @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 15:18:53 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

... walked hushed

I too am shocked by the succession of murders and threats of murder in this country.  Something wicked comes this way.

 

What a beautiful sentence, this is poetry -

I have slept on the wrong side of the Berlin Wall and walked hushed through the ghost-filled grounds of Dachau.

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by: KerryGinn @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 17:17:18 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Ditto what KerryGinn said, re: your poetry.

I never slept on the wrong side of the Berlin Wall (well, technically I did, but clearly not in the way you did - I was a low-life tourist) but Dachau - as a 23 year-old fresh out of college, never before having experienced anything "different" in the world (and having voted, to my future regret, for Ronnie Raygun the first time) Dachau moved me like nothing else I had ever experienced.  I recognized it, and recognized that on that day, I lost a part of my innocence.

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by: aggieric @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 19:35:09 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Thank you both for your kind remarks...

"recognized that on that day, I lost a part of my innocence"...that has poetry to it, too.

...but I don't want to leave the wrong impression.

I was never a resident of East Germany. I had made friends with a couple and their child who were on a visit there five years before. My sleeping a couple of nights in East Berlin in 1989 was simply part of a design to smuggle money to them to help them try to get out of the country in that crazy [in a good way] period of time when Hungary suddenly declared it would no longer cooperate with the Soviets in stopping people from "Iron Curtain" countries from leaving.

As long as one was "in good standing" with the East German regime, East Germans were free to travel to other Soviet Block countries. So people would literally travel through Poland and/or [then] Czechoslovakia to Hungry to Austria to West Germany, essentially a giant circle to get back to their own country.

I met some Germans in their 20s who had literally traveled all that way from East Berlin to get into West Berlin, tho how they'd gotten back through the section of East Germany that separated Berlin from West Germany I don't recall. [Confused? By political fluke and compromise, free West
Berlin was within, surrounded by East Germany. It wasn't a matter of the country simply being cut in two along a line going through Berlin.]

Entering East Berlin, one could be searched at anytime...to any length including strip search...but an acquaintance who lived in Cologne told me that because they were so eager for western currency if one booked a night or two at an East Berlin hotel they were less likely to do that. And that's exactly what happened. I didn't even have to get out of the East taxi I'd taken, and the driver dealt with the border guards when, normally, one would have at least gotten a face-to-face once over.

And fortunately for me, three nights later after I'd moved to a pension in West Berlin and attempted to walk back in to East Berlin and was suddenly pulled out of line and led into a room where I was told to empty my pockets the West Marks were already in my East friends' apartment.

I had a brief scare because I did still have one verboten article on me: a cassette tape of Simon & Garfunkel's Greatest Hits. Technically, I could have been arrested for trying to smuggle it in. As it was, the border guard simply disappeared with it for about 10 minutes, returned, gave the tape back to me, and waved me into the police-state city. [As imperfect as we are, you'll never understand the greatness of our freedom until you have a taste of what its absence is like.]

To this day, I've always wondered what he was doing during that period of time. Checking for spy messages on the tape? High-speed copying it? Or simply enjoying a few free, sublime minutes of

"When you're weary, feelin' small...like a bridge over troubled water I will lay me down."

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by: Michael Bedwell @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 20:58:06 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

the gift that keeps on giving

this guy was also big on the Obama birth conspiracy theory, another fave of the Republican right wing. Via TPM:

And may be not just hardcore Neo-Nazis on the right who liked Von Brunn's work.   A recent screed he wrote about President Obama's birth certificate was posted on Free Republic, the conservative site.

BTW, the Freepers yanked that thread.

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by: Pam Spaulding @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 15:03:06 PM CDT

Oh CRAP!

We've got one of those nutters here in town w/license plate "NOBAMA" (purchased Octber 2008, weeks before the election).

For months he had 3 or 4 huge signs regarding the "birth conspiracy" sites and info prominently placed on his front lawn- sheets of plywood with the info spray painted on. Then he switched to Pelosi as his verbal target for a month. Nothing right now; all is quiet- and frankly, it makes me wonder wtf he is up to.

He also printed off dozens of the birth conspiracy site info and pinned them to the local general store community bulletin board- I took them down and flung them in the trash.

===========================================

An elderly woman who lives on the outskirts of town with her single middle-aged son came over here a few times when we first moved here, long skirt swishing about her ankles and weird little doily pinned over her hair (which was pulled back in a bun).

One time, she asked me if we would like to hear more about "The Maine Militia", of which she and her son were members as well as read the Bible with them. I said no and she has not been back since.  

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by: Louise @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 15:10:48 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Free Republic pulled Von Brunn's thread

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by: dstavro @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 15:18:22 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

The thread is still there...

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by: Kokas @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 18:19:01 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

The guard passed away.

Breaking on MSNBC.

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by: Louise @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 15:11:12 PM CDT

RIP, Stephen Tyrone Johns

and thank you for your quick actions.

Goodness knows how many lives your quick actions and personal sacrifice saved.

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by: Louise @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 15:12:12 PM CDT

You know, it's times like this

As a white guy, that I just want to go sit under a tanning lamp for a couple days......

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by: sfalken @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 15:13:42 PM CDT

On Facebook

this comment regarding Pam's post:

stop stop freaking stop making this political, please this is the sillyness that is destroying debate in this nation

Talk about having your head up your own ass so far you can see your own epiglottis...

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by: Louise @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 15:25:59 PM CDT

Glen Beck was whining about this

 I got home and mom had Fox on and his mug.  Claiming there are haters on both sides.  I wish these right wingers would give a name or group on the left who are spreading hate.

I don't know of any that constantly clammer for the death of another human being. I will admit I was glad to see Falwell and a few others to pass away, but not by someone ending his life prematurely.

 The right owns these crazy people, well, they are these crazy people.

If I make sense? it was quite by accident.

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by: HappyCat @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 16:37:25 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

It's their growing meme: Intolerance of intolerance is evil

And they're suing to try to enforce it:

"Religious right group likens S.F. supes to Nazis

San Francisco Chronicle, Wednesday, June 10, 2009

(06-09) 17:14 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- Lawyers for a Catholic advocacy group that sued San Francisco for condemning the Vatican's policy on same-sex adoptions are comparing the city's supervisors to Nazis laying the groundwork for the slaughter of Jews.

In a statement responding to last week's ruling by a federal appeals court in the city's favor, Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, used a German term for the Nazi policy of forced conformity to party doctrine and the elimination of opposition groups in the 1930s:

"It is not a stretch to compare the San Francisco board's actions to that of the Nazi Germany policy of Gleichschaltung, vilifying Jews as an auxiliary to and laying the groundwork for more repressive policies, including the final solution of extermination."

He was referring to the supervisors' March 2006 resolution denouncing a Vatican order to Catholic Charities not to place adoptive children with same-sex couples. In the decree, Cardinal William Levada, the former San Francisco archbishop who now heads the church's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said allowing gay or lesbian couples to adopt children "would actually mean doing violence to these children."

The nonbinding board resolution, sponsored by then-Supervisor Tom Ammiano, said the Vatican order contained "hateful and discriminatory rhetoric" and urged local Catholic officials, including Levada's successor as archbishop, George Niederauer, to disregard it. In response, Catholic Charities of San Francisco stopped placing children for adoption with any families.

In the lawsuit, the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights accused the city of acting with hostility toward Catholicism in violation of the constitutional requirement of government neutrality. But the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said the supervisors had acted for a legal, secular purpose, to protect same-sex couples from discrimination, and not to express disapproval of Catholicism.

The Thomas More Law Center, which represents the plaintiffs, said it would ask the full appeals court for a rehearing and then appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. According to the law center's Web page, its mission is "to defend and protect Christians and their religious beliefs in the public square."

"In total disregard for the Constitution, homosexual activists in positions of authority in San Francisco have ... misused the instruments of the government to attack the Catholic Church," said attorney Robert Muise, who argued the case.

"We're not saying that the resolution is going to lead toward extermination of Catholics," Brian Rooney, attorney and spokesman for the law center, said Tuesday. "The problem with having governments vilifying religions and their tenets is that it's a slippery slope to instigate acts of violence."

Ammiano, a Catholic and now a Democratic state assemblyman, said the law center's comments represent "a very unhealthy hysteria" that "trivializes what the Nazis did." With such statements, he said, "the Catholic hierarchy is ... divorcing the true believers and alienating them from the mother church."

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by: Michael Bedwell @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 17:55:08 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Easy!

That's easy, HC!

EVERY group who opposes the return of Godly principles to government, who opposes the outlawing of same-sex "marriage", who advocates "special rights" for homosexuals and he-shes, who promote "hate crimes" laws, who opposes prayer in schools, etcetera is considered by the reicht to be a "hate" group!

Listen to "TransTalk" every Monday from 4-5pm ET on http://www.falconradio.org beginning January 11th!

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by: Marlene @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 20:22:23 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Stop making this political??? A man has been murdered during a hate crime

and we're somehow in the wrong for "making it political???"

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by: night owl @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 22:22:36 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

remember how the right wing cried foul about the DHS report?

Conservative media freak-out: claim Obama DHS targeting conservatives in report on right-wing extremists

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by: Pam Spaulding @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 15:56:10 PM CDT

Obama's Response?

"How lovely!  God IS in the mix!"

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by: bluegrassfool @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 16:52:10 PM CDT

that filthy sow Michelle Malkin

Tries to say the murderer is neither Left or right...just LOONEY

NAZIs are the extreme RIGHT....own it

Had a communist done these shootings, she would have been FIRST to blame the Left.

   http://img56.imageshack.us/img...
gooble gobble....BIATCH!

"race, taste. and History finally overcome....and you ain't there"
by Tony Kushner

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by: peteyPornpig @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 17:46:16 PM CDT

my heart breaks for the families of those shot

Jesus wept.

"race, taste. and History finally overcome....and you ain't there"
by Tony Kushner

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by: peteyPornpig @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 17:48:45 PM CDT

see HateWatch at the Southern Poverty Law Center

A summary of publicly available coverage of hate groups' current activities can be found at

http://www.splcenter.org/blog/

Oddly enough, HateWatch shows that James von Brunn's user page on wikipedia has just been removed.  (Maybe the user was not the same individual?)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U...

 

Gosh, but I'm filled with uncertainty whether the gay-rights movement can rely upon government protection against "internal" terrorists -- Honestly, where does it rank on that legendary agenda?

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by: KerryGinn @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 18:54:21 PM CDT

Wow. The Holocaust Museum is the one place I make a point to visit

every time I'm in DC, in part because they have always included the persecution of LGBTs in their exhibits even thought they could have ignored our history in favor of their own.

If there is such a thing as God's grace, may it be with them.

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by: aggieric @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 19:23:57 PM CDT

I remember when Elie Wiesel and Larry Kramer had the dedication ceremony

about a week before the March on Washington

"race, taste. and History finally overcome....and you ain't there"
by Tony Kushner

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by: peteyPornpig @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 20:05:47 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

We've had our cable out all day, it feels like living in a vacuum

"race, taste. and History finally overcome....and you ain't there"
by Tony Kushner

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by: peteyPornpig @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 20:08:05 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

The world on fire

In the United Kingdom, a scandal has been brewing for the past few months over a 'second home allowance' offered to Members of Parliament, intended to allow these folks to maintain a small apartment in Westminster near the Parliament building as well as their residences back home at their constituent districts. Many MPs were abusing this allowance by purchasing expensive cars, or using the allowance to buy small homes and then 'flip' them for a profit. MPs from all three of the major political parties in the UK (Labour, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats) were caught, and in large numbers.

The European Union holds EU wide elections for a parliament that meets in Brussels to pass laws affecting the entire EU. This past weekend, these elections took place, and voter turnout was shockingly low-in the UK, it was just under 25%, perhaps from fallout over the expenses scandal. As aa result, two extreme right parties, the UK Independence Party (UKIP) and the British National Party (BNP) won seats in the European Parliament, and now receive funding from the EU. The BNP is openly racist, an considers the Nazis to be their ideological forebears. UKIP wants to isolate Brittan economically, cutting all ties with the EU, the US, and everyone else. The BNP now holds two seats in the European Parliament, and UKIP holds 13-enough to make it the party with the second highest number of seats in the EU Parliament from Britain. Overall, center and far right parties made massive gains across the continent, with moderate Socialist parties and more radical left parties losing alot of ground. The UK's Labour Party is now a third party in the EU Parliament.

Here, we have this neo-nazi killer attacking a building 500 meters from the White House, we have a group that cheered on the killer of Dr Tiller offering to buy the clinic he used to operate so they can turn it into some hideous memorial to the cause of those who advocate killing abortion providers, while Rush and Newt and Billo and Beck and Dobbs and Dobson all cheer them on from the rafters.

A dark cloud is gathering over the world tonight. We must bond together for our mutual protection. They are resorting to more and more extreme efforts as a fear response to last year's elections. We must look out for each other therefore, and if anyone looks like they are in danger, even if they are a member of a minority to which you yourself do not belong, you must help them.

If it comes down to us versus them-the fascists versus everyone else-my socialist self is with the everyone else's. Let's lock arms and bum rush the bastards.

My dad was a steelworker
My mom was a kitchen girl
and that's why
I'm a socialist.
-from an old song I used to hum to myself

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by: DaveB @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 20:23:32 PM CDT

Attack at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

As a volunteer Docent at the USHMM I have frequently had the opportunity to tell visitors that the Museum, a likely target of attacks such as occurred today, is probably the safest building in Washington, DC for good reason. Security is overwhelmingly apparent and, coupled with security personnel not easily identified by the public, makes today's attack seem so stunning in its audacity and intent. It should be noted that the attacker was not able to penetrate the security measures inside of the building and was stopped at about a step inside the entryway.

I wept when I heard the first reports of this outrage. While not being present at the Museum today, my first thought was about the safety of the many Holocaust survivors who are volunteers at the Museum, as well as the safety of the staff and thousands of visitors who were there when the attack occurred. What horror and anguish they must have felt when it became obvious what was transpiring in this Memorial to the 12 million victims of the Holocaust. I wept, too, when it was reported that a member of the security force - Mr. Stephen Tyrone Johns - had lost his life in protecting the safety of the visitors, staff, and volunteers.

I have had friends and others ask me why I volunteer at the Museum. Many make reference to the sadness and overwhelming horror of the place and question why I, as a non-Jew would want to be in such a place...that what is presented in the permanent display of the Museum illustrates what happened "over there" and thus has no relevance to our lives.  My response is always "because I have to"...because it is incumbant on all of us to make sure that the terror and fear and hatred and evil of the Holocaust never happen again.

Today's attack has only renewed my conviction and my determination to continue to work at the Museum. We must all work doubly hard to defeat the negativism and hatred and bigotry that surround us in this country so that none of us becomes a victim of any attempts to strip us of our humanity. As members of the GLBT community we should and can recognize the importance of the Museum's rallying cry: "Never Again".

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by: Pineapple @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 20:46:00 PM CDT

thank you for your work at the Museum

I was a docent for the Anne Frank Remembered traveling exhibit, when it was in Billings, MT in 1994--we asked that it be brought to Billings because of racist and anti-Semitic skinhead activity there in 1993 (http://www.pbs.org/niot/about/niot1.html).

When people asked me how I could deal with leading people thru what they saw as such a tragic exhibit, I, like you, felt that I needed to do it to make the world better, safer, and to find peace for myself.  Because I wasn't a Jew (and most of the people who worked so hard on the exhibit and the Tolerance projects that followed weren't Jews, either), some folks didn't get it.  But they definately got the exhibit!  They couldn't leave the exhibit without asking what they would do if their country turned against a group of people in that way.

Wow, looking at that last sentence--can't help but wonder what we are seeing rising at this time in our country.

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by: kelleya1 @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 22:44:19 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Ann Frank Exhibit

I think that it was the same one that went through Regina, Saskatchewan a few years ago (2006?) because some of it was obviously dated, such as stuff about Ronald Reagan signing stuff and it being treated as fairly current.  It was a very moving exhibit, and the focus on what was normal life before the Nazis and what happened under them was really quite thought provoking, as you said.  

My America includes LGBT families.

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by: Mena @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 23:01:08 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Whoops!

Saskatoon, not Regina.  Here's a pdf about the exhibit.  Maybe it's just the same topic, not the same exhibit:
http://www.city.saskatoon.sk.c...

My America includes LGBT families.

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by: Mena @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 23:04:29 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

My visit to the Holocaust Museum

As I've mentioned before, I grew up in Baltimore in a diverse neighborhood and learned about the Holocaust in a very personal way from my best friend's parents who were Holocaust survivors. (I knew that it had happened, because it was discussed a lot in my house and it was still fresh in people's minds so it came up a lot. Also, don't forget that this is during the time that Germany was partitioned and there was a lot of tension - leading up to the Berlin airlift.)

At dinner one night, I saw the serial number tattoo on my friend's father's arm and asked about it. His mother showed me hers. They briefly and clearly told me about the Holocaust and included all of the people in addition to Jews who were killed - gypsies, homosexuals, etc. (I remember them saying "homosexuals" - and this was in the late 50's, maybe 1960, so that was the word they used.)

My friend was an only child because his mother's children, husband, parents, brothers and sisters, and her entire family were killed in a concentration camp. Same for his father - his wife, children, parents, brothers and sisters, and his entire family were killed. Each of them believed he or she was the sole surviving member of his or her family.

ANYWAY, I always thought that the Nazi's simply rounded people up, locked them up, and murdered them in shower rooms, and other converted facilities.

WHEN I went to the Holocaust Museum in DC, I was shocked into tears of disbelief at one thing: The Nazis actually engineered and built extermination factories using the latest technology to manage the factories, and keep track of the people they were killing.

IT HAD SIMPLY not occurred to me that murdering people was such a high priority that they would apply advanced engineering and information management techniques to the task with such methodical intent.

If they had been focused on winning the war instead of wasting their management time, money, scientists, engineers, and construction workers on extermination factories, they might have actually won the war.

The idea that murdering people ranked so high on their priority list that they were willing to risk losing the war to kill people indicated to me a much deeper evil than I had attributed to the Nazis prior to visiting the Holocaust Museum.

The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in time of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality. -- John F. Kennedy (inspired by Dante's Inferno)

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by: oldbrit @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 21:02:27 PM CDT

Also lived in Balto for a time

There was a wonderful old doctor at our hospital- one time he was a patient of mine and as I drew blood from him, I saw the numbers tattoo. Having never seen one before and not knowing the signifigance, I asked and he explained that he and his sister lost the rest of their family in one of the camps. I think they were 2 of 8 children; their parents were also killed.

Click HERE and sign up: Campaign For Military Partners

Click here for DADT photobook

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by: Louise @ Thu Jun 11, 2009 at 04:24:51 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Make a Donation in Mr. Johns' name to the Museum

To thank museum guard, Steven Johns, who died for his work for the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, I made a donation to the museum today in his name.  It would be great if Blenders would join me in this venture to counteract the hate out there.  

Follow the link below to make a donation.

http://web.ushmm.org/site/c.kl...

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by: kelleya1 @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 22:24:15 PM CDT

Sharing link...

Click HERE and sign up: Campaign For Military Partners

Click here for DADT photobook

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by: Louise @ Thu Jun 11, 2009 at 04:25:29 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

profiling

I won't claim this is an original thought (strikes me that any number of feminists would have come to these conclusions decades ago).  And as a recent Blend addict, I'm not even sure a long-timer hasn't already posted similar sentiments.  But in the wake of another galactically insane but criminally predictable murder, I think it bears saying.  Here it goes.

What do Stephen John's killer today, Dr. Tiller's killer, and the person who murdered an Army private at a recruiting office have in common?  What do the September 11 terrorists, the Oklahoma City Federal Building bombers, and the Unabomber have in common?  What about megalomaniac annihilator cult leaders and political despots, and the assassins of presidents and civil rights leaders?  What group commits an extraordinary proportion of bashings, rapes, murders, and every other conceivable manner of violent crime?  That's right.  Males.  Men of all races, religions, ethnicities, nationalities.  Males like James van Brunn.

Is it nature (in utero brain formation and testosterone)?  Nurture (cruel parents and macho sh*thead indoctrination)?  Culture (increasing temptations and lack of consequences associated with male privilege and power)?  A combination?

Now, don't get me wrong.  I like having a dick.  It provides me a great deal of fun.  And over the years I have become increasingly aware of the ways my life is easier as a male than women's lives are (though of course I don't rejoice in that privilege or in the challenges and disadvantages that women are forced to negotiate).

But there is overwhelming evidence of something profoundly defective about our gender.  No, not every individual—but overall, and undeniably.  And no, women are not perfect by any means.  But their sex is not afflicted by the extraordinary propensity for violence that our sex is.  Certainly the rest of the animal kingdom mirrors this dynamic, and it was probably functional in early human evolution.  But in modern societies, it is poison.  Yet when appalling crimes are repeatedly, overwhelmingly committed by males; male politicians, male media, male law enforcement, etc., become completely blind.  "How tragic/ awful/ evil/ terrible," we say as we turn away and remain in complete denial about this pattern.  

So if the Right has to own that their rhetoric and support of extremists aids and abets those extremists, what must we men own and take responsibility for?  What actions must we take to stop enabling horrific male violence on this planet generation after generation?  How do we raise boys to be kind, caring, compassionate, responsible, communitarian human beings worthy to be called men?  Or how do we simply contribute to a new culture that will allow humans to thrive in cooperation with each other and with the earth and all other life?

Listen to your fairy Godmother, my dear: you will go to the ball.

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by: 555catnap @ Thu Jun 11, 2009 at 00:18:02 AM CDT

I read the killer was a frustrated artist

Hitler was also a frustrated artist.

FOR F*CK SAKE buy these little sociopaths some coloring books when they toddlers.

"race, taste. and History finally overcome....and you ain't there"
by Tony Kushner

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by: peteyPornpig @ Thu Jun 11, 2009 at 00:40:52 AM CDT