THE DAILY BLADE: Critics Slam MO Domestic Security Report Linking Militias To Republican Presidential Candidates
During the campaign, several law enforcement officials in MO formed a "truth squad" to go after conservative and Republican critics of Barack Obama. It seems that being Republican is still something akin to a crime in the “Show Me State” (as in, “Show me a Christian who is against abortion and I’ll show you a domestic terrorist militia member who’s voting for a Republican”), reports The Kansans City Star:
The Missouri Highway Patrol this week retracted a controversial report on militia activity and will change how such reports are reviewed before being distributed to law enforcement agencies.
The Highway Patrol also will open an investigation into the origin of the report, which linked conservative groups with domestic terrorism and named former presidential candidates Ron Paul, Bob Barr and Chuck Baldwin. …
The uproar revolves around a report released last month by the Missouri Information Analysis Center, a “fusion center” for local, state and federal law enforcement agencies to collaborate on domestic security issues. The report concerned militia movements in Missouri and across the U.S., and described how they had evolved over the last several years.
But it suggested that domestic militias often subscribed to radical ideologies rooted in Christian views and opposition to immigration, abortion or federal taxes. The report also stated that it was “not uncommon” for militia members to support third-party political candidates. …
Conservatives in Missouri and nationally have criticized the report for lumping people with conservative political views in with domestic terrorists and potentially opening them to harassment from law enforcement. …
[Lt. Gov. Peter] Kinder criticized the report for suggesting that only issues championed by conservatives motivated domestic terrorists. The report “slanders” opponents of abortion and critics of illegal immigration, he said. …
Also troubling Kinder said, the report makes no mention of Islamic terrorists or those who might subscribe to ideologies associated with liberals, such as environmental radicals.
The Department of Public Safety has sent letters of apology to third party and Republican presidential candidates mentioned by name in the discredited report.
CA Memorial Dedicated To Victims, Survivors Of Crimes Against Humanity
On Sunday, Sonoma State University (Rohnert Park, CA) dedicated a memorial to the victims and survivors of the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide, as well as of other genocides worldwide. The memorial was designed and assembled by associate professor of sculpture Jann Nunn, reports KPIX-TV (Channel5-San Francisco):
The sculpture consists of two 40-foot long railroad tracks emerging from a gentle grassy rise, crossing a footpath and narrowing to a width of six inches where the rails disappear into a black granite pedestal and the foundation of a 10-foot tall clear glass tower.
The tower is a fabricated cylinder made of 5,000 pieces of glass that will be illuminated from dusk to dawn and by sunlight during the day and artificial lighting at night.
The granite base will contain these words of Martin Luther King Jr.: "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
"The narrowing distances between the tracks and the convergence into the lighted tower represent the hope that as civilization progresses and we learn from past errors there will be fewer incidents of genocide and holocaust," Nunn said.
Nunn tells The Press Democrat (Santa Rosa, CA), “I chose glass because I wanted to have illumination in the area at all times” so that the piece is “hopeful.”
Bricks engraved with the names of Holocaust and genocide survivors are inlaid around the tracks. People throughout the U.S. and Canada purchased bricks for $100 or $250 each, which offset the $100K cost of the memorial.
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