Charleston massacre: Did Boehner and the GOP prevent DHS from fighting domestic terrorism?

[ProgressiveEconomist]

In 2009, Janet Napolitano actually predicted events like last week’s racist massacre and another 2012 massacre in Wisconsin. But Fox “News” and Republicans may have inhibited her from taking preventive action. If she had, maybe Charleston’s very sympathetic mayor would have provided more long-term police protection at the Emanuel AME Church.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Read the direct quote from John Boehner below, and the Think Progress article’s epilog:

“Sec. Janet Napolitano ended up withdrawing the report and apologizing …”

From http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/08/07/645421/right-wing-extremism/

“Republicans Blasted Obama Administration For Warning About Right-Wing Domestic Terrorism

BY ANNIE-ROSE STRASSER, AUGUST 7, 2012

“The gunman in the shooting at a Sikh temple over the weekend has been labeled a potential domestic terrorist — defined as one who incites politically-motivated violence against his or her own country. In Wade Michael Page’s case, that political motivation was likely white supremacy, a growing problem in the United States.

But when, in 2009, the Department of Homeland Security reported that white supremacy is the US’s biggest threat for domestic terror, it was met with harsh criticism. Conservatives blasted the department for defining terror threats too broadly, instead of focusing on potential Islamic terrorists.

Then-House Minority Leader Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) was one of those who berated DHS, saying that they weren’t focusing on the real threats the US faces: ‘The Secretary of Homeland Security owes the American people an explanation for why she has abandoned using the term ‘terrorist’ to describe those, such as al Qaeda, who are plotting overseas to kill innocent Americans, while her own Department is using the same term to describe American citizens who disagree with the direction Washington Democrats are taking our nation.’

… Sec. Janet Napolitano ended up withdrawing the report and apologizing …”

---------------------------------------------------------------------

The Think Progress page provides a “Fox News” link to the 2009 DHS report draft PDF, which never went out to its intended law-enforcement audience.

Here’s a snippet from the report, at http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/041609_extremism.pdf

“DHS/I&A has concluded that white supremacist lone wolves pose the most significant domestic terrorist threat because of their low profile and autonomy—separate from any formalized group—which hampers warning efforts..[…]”.

[blm]

1. I have been posting about that for some time now.

Read this thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026864997

[ProgressiveEconomist]

2. Hey blm, I rememeber you from before I took a long break from DU

Sorry I missed that and many other non-current posts. You do great work.

IMO it can't hurt to revisit the Napolitano report and its "conservative backlash"--especially at a teachable moment when the media has an wide-open "newshole" and pols like Huckabee are destroying themselves over support for the Confederate swastika.

[blm]

3. malaise and I have been linking that report. Every ambush of police officers, too, is reason for

that report to be released. GOP congress doesn't want to be seen in bed with the domestic terrorists against law enforcement, but anyone who watched Bundy Ranch go down knows full well that they ARE!!!!

Read the links in that post. It has been all about 'race war' for these groups for some time, now. That is what is pushing gun sales, so it is worth it to those profiting financially and politically to keep up the paranoia. Paranoid RWers vote Republican and the GOP knows it.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

5. "Take our country back" is a slogan Roof shares with Sarah Palin and many other past and

current Republican aspirants to the top of the national ticket.

"Take our country back" from whom?

[malaise]

14. Why

From that Kenyan Socialist Marxist 'Farner'

[malaise]

4. The report should be made public and needs to be updated

Rec

[Renew Deal]

6. The report is publically available.

http://fas.org/irp/eprint/rightwing.pdf

http://www.dhs.gov/news/2009/04/15/secretary-napolitanos-statement-right-wing-extremism-threat

[ProgressiveEconomist]

10. You answered my question for malaise a minute before I could post it!

[malaise]

16. Thank you

[blm]

20. I think he means PUBLICIZED the way most other major reports

are publicized.

[malaise]

25. She

[blm]

26. LOL….OMG…after all these years?????

Many thought I was a guy, too….must be because we slip into 'aggressive' mode a bit too often. heheheheh

Hats off to you, madam. ; )

[malaise]

33. Hahahahahahha

back at you sis

[ProgressiveEconomist]

8. Have you seen the 2009 Napolitano draft report at URLs other than

http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/041609_extremism.pdf ?

Maybe Bernie can put it up on his Senate website.

[malaise]

12. No just reports about the report

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=6865252

[nadinbrzezinski]

28. We linked to the source

At reporting San Diego and quoted from it. I will just not post that here. The site does not want it

But the draft is available at a government server

If I post it here, people get their panties in a wad, call me names when I am correct, and not, and basically post that I am condescending. But the link to the government server is part of the analysis piece we posted. Things like that are not desired or wanted here. They have not been for years now.

And since i do not want to be verbally assaulted...

[ProgressiveEconomist]

43. ????

[nadinbrzezinski]

44. Pretty much

but that is where DU is. I do a lot of this

Walking on these guys



Anyhoo if you want the ORIGINAL source, I can give it to you over a private message. I will not post it here, never mind I posited as a theory that he did self radicalize 48 hours before the manifesto was released, I was right, and of course I expect zero apologies for the verbal abuse I took.

It was very much a very well educated guess, but being educated is seen as... being uppity and condescending on DU.

[Renew Deal]

7. Several of the threats warned about in that report have borne out

[blm]

21. Bundy Ranch. Las Vegas police shootings. Ambush of Pennsylvania troopers.

Tip of an iceberg that includes the targeted shootings of blacks and Muslims.

GOP congress doesn't want this report discussed at all let alone widely discussed by news media.

[1939]

9. DHS wouldn't have pre-empted Roof

Bundy ranch they would have caught as too many people were involved.

They might make enough investigations and arrests to shut down something like Stormfront.

Roof wouldn't have come up on their radar.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

13. But would Charleston police have worked with Pinckney to improve security at the church?

You can't easily deter the lone wolves, but you can harden their targets.

[1939]

22. Was there a specific threat against the church?

How many black churches are there to protect? If Roof's threats against the church didn't come up on their radar, why would they have three men (one per shift) to cover the church?

[ProgressiveEconomist]

24. Security takes many forms. For example, panic buttons to Police HQ could have been installed.

as they are at many banks and college campuses.

[blm]

17. Yes, he would have. DHS could have monitored known hate groups like CofCC more closely

and those who repeatedly visited the site.

GOP didn't want that, though, did they?

They didn't even want it publicized that LAW ENFORCEMENT is another target of the 'race wars' crowd.

[seveneyes]

11. Like the recent Fort Hood Massacre

Except the church of Hasan came gunning for innocents.

[blm]

18. GOP pulling DHS report sided them with Roof's side. And Jared Miller's. And Eric Frein's.

AGAINST those targeted by RW domestic terrorists.

[hifiguy]

15. Yes. But I doubt it affected the Charleston

massacre. Roof was apparently a self-radicalized ultra-racist fruitcake. Those types will always fly under any radar.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

19. See my reply #13. Churches that racists have burned to the ground twice before

are somewhat predictable targets for future attacks.

I agree that lone wolves just "come out of the woodwork", to mix two cliched metaphors.

[1939]

23. And how many years since the last burning? NT

[blm]

27. Hmmm…how many years since you cared to notice?

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2015/06/attacks-black-churches-since-1995

[1939]

30. I read the newspaper daily

I see these incidents.

Is there a pattern? Can anybody predict the next church to be attacked?

Convenience stores are more frequently robbed than churches are burned or vandalized. Can you predict the location of the next robbery and protect against it?

Can we provide a round the clock police detail to every woman whose estranged husband or boyfriend has threatened her? If we could, that would save more lives than protecting churches.

[leveymg]

32. Unless 7/11s become associated with the Civil Rights movement, this has more significance than

convenience store shootings.

Welcome to DU.

[blm]

35. And cops are more likely to get ambushed and killed by RW ideology.

Point being that GOP doesn't want YOU to know that, and certainly doesn't want news media to discuss it.

Now, why on earth would you ASK when the last church burning was if you read the newspaper daily?

When was the last time an innocent citizen's guns were taken away? More black churches have been burned or damaged than innocent citizens guns taken away. Doesn't stop the gun crowd from believing it's an issue, does it?

[leveymg]

29. That report followed the UUC shootings in Knoxville the previous July. Yes, it should have been

Last edited Tue Jun 23, 2015, 07:29 AM - Edit history (1)

published and widely distributed for its lesson learned:

Knoxville Unitarian Universalist church shooting - Wikipedia ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/.../Knoxville_Unitarian_Universalist_c...
Wikipedia
On July 27, 2008, a politically motivated fatal shooting took place at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States.
?Shooting - ?Motivations - ?Response - ?Legal proceedings

[ProgressiveEconomist]

31. Broken link

[leveymg]

34. Just Google UUC shooting Knoxville Wiki

[Nuclear Unicorn]

36. Roof wasn't part of a group and we don't want a government that

can and will sift the lives of individual citizens.

Should terror groups be interdicted? Yes. But none of that would have applied to Roof.

[JDPriestly]

38. As Napolitano's Department said, the danger of death comes from lone terrorists on the right

wing in the US.

What do you suggest doing to prevent their horrible crimes?

Killing people after sitting with them for an hour of Bible study?

Can you think of much of anything more depraved than that?

[ProgressiveEconomist]

39. See the replies to 1939's post #9.

[leveymg]

45. We have a sifting gov't, but it's not sifting the bigger pile on the Far Right.

Would Roof have easily fit into existing profiles? Probably not, unless he had extensive postings and interaction with racist militant groups. Would a school psychologist have spotted the warning signs? Probably, but he wasn't in school, and it's unclear whether he actually did anything illegal (other than drug abuse) that would warrant bringing him to the attention of the authorities. Besides, given the prevalence of guns and Neo-Confederate displays in the region, he might have passed for "normal." But, that's the point.

Was it incredibly irresponsible for his parents to allow him to have a gun and to facilitate his obtaining one, and giving it back to him after his mother took it away. They knew he was armed, a racist and unstable, but seemed to have accepted it as somehow normal. That says a lot about them. Ditto his idiot friends, who thought he was just "joking" about shooting up a university and then a Black Church to start another Civil War.

I agree. He'd probably remain under the radar, unless his parents or friends intervened and got him into counseling. But, they didn't.

[JDPriestly]

37. Napolitano's Department's statement was prophetic:

Boehner has some explaining to do.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

40. NJ AME Church security: "ushers and greeters will undergo training from the DHS,

which will also be made available to all church members".
(http://www.nj.com/essex/index.ssf/2015/06/newark_ame_parishioners_unafraid_to_return_to_chur.html)

Napolitano's officers could have done this training at Emanuel years ago, had her report not been vilified by Fox "News".

Compare this tactical approach to anti-terrorism with the first broadcast picture of Roof, that captured him freely opening the huge front doors of Emanuel. His distinctive haircut was the main thing that led a whistleblowing Shelby NC florist noticed to call the police 12 hours after the massacre. Had he had a decent haircut, Roof likely still would be on the loose.

[heaven05]

41. Well these conservative

allies, in Congress and on the streets, of the white terrorists among us just should know, the last three years of executions by badge wearing terrorist, of just plain racists, zimpig comes to mind as well as this recent animal, of unarmed men, women and children, is not going to be forgotten in a week or two as so many hope it will. Never forgotten.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

42. 'Never forgotten' --I hope you are correct,

but, judging from long history, I fear not.