In Belfast, Maine, police discover the makings of a nuclear "dirty bomb" in the basement of a white supremacist shot dead by his wife. The man, who was independently wealthy, reportedly was agitated about the election of President Obama and was crafting a plan to set off the bomb.
Ok, now that I have your attention, I'll start in my best Rachel Maddow imitation, before Comcast gives her the shove too.
How many of you knew about this news story? I'm not sure I would except that it happened in my home state and we don't get all that many murders here. Those of you who have heard of it might remember that the case dates back to 2008, when his wife, Amber Cummings shot the independently wealthy white supremacist, James Cummings. One of the reasons you might not remember the story is because the FBI sat on the information that a FAR RIGHT WING HITLER ADMIRER clearly was in the process of assembling a dirty bomb, the kind of weapon which would have been all over the news if someone with a vague connection to the Mid-East was found to have.
I'll digress to say that Amber Cummings had many good reasons to want to shoot her husband, including the very real danger that he was a danger to her 9-year-old daughter. Her reasons for doing it were good enough so that she was released without a sentence by the judge. I think it's possible that she also saved some place in the United States, perhaps some place that Barack Obama was due to make an appearance, from a potentially catastrophic radiological attack.
Oddly enough, law enforcement didn't seem all that eager to publicize the find of the materials.
The killing drew the FBI's attention after Nazi mementos, radioactive materials and instructions on how to build a "dirty bomb" were found in their home.
Her husband was angered by Barack Obama's election as president and the bomb-making materials were discovered near the time of Obama's inauguration, but law enforcement officials said the public was not at risk.
Perhaps we were not at risk because Amber Cummings interrupted her husbands little shop project early enough so that they could say that. Considering the dopey kids without presonal wealth the FBI has entrapped into plots far less likely to endanger the public, and trumpeted it in press conferences and news opportunities, they seemed to have en remarkably quiet in this case.
There is an obvious double standard when it's white terrorists suspected in these things. There is that odd eclipsing of the actual bombing attempt in Spokane, Washington during the Martin Luther King Day parade this month, with an actual bomb with shrapnel left on the parade route. Since Rachel Maddow has been a lone voice trying to generate some media interest in that, I'll enthusiastically point out that the endangered MSNBC voice of liberalism has been doing her best to highlight it with mixed results.
The media, and parts of law enforcement in the United States have a soft glove they use for right wing, white terrorists. Their standards for news reporting , the standards of much of the law enforcement establishement, reminds me that the most accomplished white terrorists in our history, the lynch mobs, the KKK, etc. enjoyed similar soft glove treatment by the FBI and much of the media. Of course, back then, what might have been called "the media" was print and it was far more diverse than the electronic media with the most impact today, though the generally individual papers and magazines that covered right wing, white terrorism then had nowhere the impact that the large chains did.
All of this is to tell you about a very valuable interactive map of terrorism against liberals and governmental sources in recent years posted by the great journalist David Niewert at estimable Crooks and Liars. It's very like the time lines I linked to here recently. We, my friends, are under attack. The great free press of the country, which can be counted on to go Balloon Boy nuts over any hint of a possibility of a plan of an attack from someone without white skin, preferably with a name Americans have a hard time pronouncing, finds their attention lagging when it's a right wing attack. The number of those since Barack Obama became president is proof that the right is the more serious danger to us.
You might think that BARACK OBAMA'S appointees to the FCC would put the public's need to know before the profits of two enormous, information unfriendly corporations. But Barack Obama has been thoroughly indocrinated in the predominant free market religion and his appointees can be relied on to hand them just about everything they want.