Another Republican Lie Has Been Destroyed

The Republican media has been on a rampage over the past week... complaining about the recent Homeland Security Assessment warning about the increase in Right Wing extremist activity, and warning that Right Wing extremist groups might target disgruntled, unhappy, unemployed former military folks for their organizations. Republican talk show hosts and pundits are claiming that the report is an effort by Barack Obama to attack Veterans...and is a politically motivated effort to hurt Republicans. They have labeled the report as "Obama's report"...and they have strongly suggested that the investigation of these groups was started by the Obama Administration. They also claim that DHS is being one-sided in looking at only Right Wing groups.

But it turns out, the Homeland Security Assessment had actually been underway for quite some time before Obama became President. That's right, the assessment was initiated under the Bush Administration, and was overseen by a Bush appointee.... by several Bush appointees in fact. The bulk of the work was done by the time Obama took office and long before he was able to get his administration up and running. So how could this be some grand conspiracy by Obama or his Administration?

The claim that the report is one-sided has also been debunked. I recalled a similar assessment about left-wing groups only a few months ago. The postings from RightWingWatch and Crooks and Liars confirms that I was not hallucinating when I heard the advisories warning about left-wing environmental terrorism. The wingnuts on the left bother me almost as much as the wingnuts on the right. But I have to admit that I find the Right wing extremists to be far more dangerous.

This fiasco is yet another example of Republican Right Wing craziness...and absolute paranoia. Again, what they are trying to do is whip up anger against Obama any way they can. Most of the time these Right Wing media folks know they are lying when they speak...they have to. They can't be this crazy and clueless. I believe that most of this nonsense is calculated.

That being said... I do believe that the vetting of this report before it was released (although it was reportedly "leaked") was poorly done. The highlighting of Veterans was probably unnecessary and Senior DHS officials had to have known that using Veterans in this context, especially when the Country is still trapped in two wars, would spark a firestorm from Right Wing Republicans. The wording of the report could have & should have been changed to avoid highlighting Veterans, while still getting the point across about the Right Wing Extremist threat. No one picked this up earlier in the process? That's incredible! That's what frustrates me the most about this whole situation... the way DHS framed the report (when it was not particularly necessary). Are they clueless about the huge platform that Right Wing media has in this Country and that if you don't have your business in order Republicans will pounce on it for their political gain? Obama apparently has quite a few boneheads working in these various agencies. It's frustrating knowing that I can't get a job in government, but there are all of these idiots working in the Obama Administration.


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