The Rise of Right-Wing Violence (by Pareene at Gawker)

When the Department of Homeland Security issued a report warning of potential violence by "right-wing extremists," the right-wingers of the internet were enraged. Then some right-wing extremists started killing people. Three--three!--political shootings by right-wing extremists does actually make a trend, mostly because it's not accidental that the crazies are turning violent now. Right-wing domestic terror, weirdly, spikes when the right-wing media step up the intensity and violence of their rhetoric--which they happen to do when Democrats are in charge...

What happens is Scott Roeder, the Kansas resident who murdered Dr. George Tiller at church because he was an anti-abortion fanatic with ties to, hey, a right-wing extremist group. There was Jim Adkisson, who shot up a Unitarian church, killing two, because he hated liberals and gays. And now there is the White Supremacist who just shot up the goddamn Holocaust Museum. He is, of course, named "James Von Brunn," and he is 89 years old! And, obviously, he writes crazy things, on the internet. He is also a World War II vet? For the Allies! [Emphasis added.]

James W. Von Brunn's anti-Semitic screed (by Mark Benjamin, Salon)
The alleged Holocaust Museum shooter published a book called "Kill the Best Gentiles." Read selections here.

How Many Crazed Gunmen Is it Going to Take? (Truthdig)
President Obama said in response "we must remain vigilant against anti-Semitism." Sure, but how about getting a little vigilant against guns? The alleged shooter served six years in prison after showing up at a Federal Reserve meeting with a sawed-off shotgun among other weapons, but he obviously had no trouble rearming.
To stop the discussion from going in that direction, then, what kind of creativity can we expect from the right wing? See the following stories to get an idea.

On Fox, Jim Lacamp says Obama admin's "class warfare" helps set "the stage for social unrest" (County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Fox News hosts "terror expert Bob Newman" to discuss Holocaust Museum shooting (County Fair, Media Matters for America)
[Wednesday], Neil Cavuto hosted Bob Newman -- a Colorado radio host who Cavuto presented as a "terror expert" -- to discuss the shooting at the Holocaust Museum. During the segment, Newman raised questions about whether President Obama's recent visit to a concentration camp or his statement about Israeli settlements were factors in the shooting... Cavuto didn't say anything else about Newman's background, so here are a couple highlights from his radio show, The Gunny Bob Show. Newman called for all Muslim immigrants to the U.S. "to be required by law to wear a GPS tracking bracelet at all times"... Newman said of "terrorist-hugging" Obama: "What are you gonna do, Obama, come to Denver and try ... to whip my white ass?"

Newsmax.com publishes column, "Obama Breeds Climate of Hate Against Jews," linking Obama to Holocaust Museum shooting (County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Right-Wingers Blame Left-Wingers and Muslims for Holocaust Museum Shooting (by The Cajun Boy at Gawker)
First off, Beck went on his show [Wednesday night] and performed perhaps the most stunning feat of pulling one out of the old anus in the history of stunning pulling one out of the ole anus feats. Beck, with a straight face mind you, looked into the camera and said that America as it stands today is a "boiling pot" fueled by extremists groups like Al Qaeda and 9/11 truthers who are sowing the seeds of extremism and hatred in this country. Then, still with a straight face, Beck also warned his viewers that more violence is likely to come in the future, that "more nutjobs are going to coming out of the woodwork now," that all of this is part of the "perfect storm" he's been trying to warn everyone about, a "perfect storm" which will result in a "witchhunt" that will focus on two groups of people. Can you guess who they might be?

Jews and--Conservatives!

IT HAPPENED LAST TIME: (by Bob Somerby at the Daily Howler)
By "last time," we mean the last time we had a Democrat president. As you may recall, that president was Bill Clinton--and crazy stories spread far and wide about his intolerable ways. The liberal world ran off and hid in the woods--and, to all intents and purposes, the "mainstream press corps" didn't exist. And sure enough! By September 1994, a man name Frank Corder decided to act. This incident largely went down the memory hole, like most misconduct directed at Clinton... Were unbalanced people driven to act by all the crazy talk about Clinton? Are unbalanced people being so moved by Obama's rise today? By crazy and semi-crazy talk about him?...

Is it time for the mainstream press to come to terms with America's underworld discourse? For decades, the mainstream press has tended to avoid the cauldron of craziness bubbling beneath the surface of our public discussions. In the 1990s, the insider press was closely involved with the spread of crazy talk about Clinton, then Gore. Today, the insider press is much less interested in spewing wild tales about Obama. But the mainstream press corps loves to avoid all such difficult, unpleasant regions. Isn't it time to report it out straight? There are crazy areas of our discourse, in which people are encouraged to believe crazy things. Yes, we know: Powerful people are sometimes involved in these wild promulgations. But isn't it time to report it out straight: That there's lunacy inside our discourse?

The worm turns and turns... (by Joseph Cannon at Cannonfire)
From Joan Walsh in today's Salon... "...[I]t's hard not to think about the extreme right-wing rhetoric, especially about Barack Obama, and whether it could conceivably lead to more right-wing violence." What about the tons of hate-talk offered by the pro-Obama forces during the campaign? What about the transformation of Kos, D.U., AmericaBlog and TPM into festering cesspools of cyber-rage? What about the death-threats? Apparently, that genre of extremist rhetoric does not trouble Joan Walsh.