Back in 2009, the Department of Homeland Security issued a report that rang alarm bells about white nationalism, far-right extremism and domestic terrorism. And Republicans promptly had a cow.
Then-House Minority Leader John Boehner took particular umbrage, indignantly bleating that DHS was demonizing "American citizens who disagree with the direction Washington Democrats are taking our nation." Then-DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano ended up walking the report back — something that infuriated us at the time.
Well, of course you know what's happened. Shooting after shooting by right-wing haters has taken place in America, the most recent one just yesterday in Northern California. Before 19-year-old Santino Legan started firing at a food festival crowd with a semi-automatic weapon that he had to go to Nevada to buy (since it's illegal in the Golden State), he posted approvingly about a white supremacist manifesto.
After this, and after the church murders in Charleston, and the Sikh temple murders in Wisconsin, and the synagogue massacre in Pittsburgh, etc. etc. ad nauseum, we have one question: Do we hear a chorus of apologies from conservatives and Republicans who were outraged about a prescient DHS report 10 years ago?
Of course we don't. And since we can't depend on the press to follow up with those members of the GOP who defended right-wing terrorism in 2009, we have to jog everyone's memory here. We cats are disgusted, and we HISS.
IMAGE: Stephen Romero, age 6 — killed by a right-wing terrorist who, to paraphrase John Boehner, probably agreed with the direction Washington Republicans are taking our nation.
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