Wingnuts hoist by Homeland Security petard – militias revival?

Glenn Beck, Mark Steyn, Michelle Malkin, and other wingers who dismissed complaints that the Bush Administration’s Department of Homeland Security targeted antiwar activists and civil libertarians the past six years now find out that …

Homeland Security is really worried about the white supremacists, Richard Poplowski conspiracy theorists, etc., as conservative newspaper organ the Washington Times reports. (Here’s the full DHS report [PDF].)

Here’s your pull quote:

Rightwing extremists will attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans in order to exploit their skills and knowledge derived from military training and combat.

In other words, the old militias movement, waking back up.

At the same time, the Times story notes DHS warned in January about far-left groups increasing cyberattacks in the future.

Meanwhile, Brendan Calling reminds us exactly why we, and DHS, should worry.

Hat tip to Glenn Greenwald, who notes DHS started work on this report while Bush was still in office.

Talk radio kills

And no, not in the ratings.

Right-wing talk radio, the type that starts at Limbaugh and goes right from there, arguable had a hand in the winger nutbar conspiracy thinking of Pittsburgh cop-killer Richard Andrew Poplawski, though judging by his own mom’s fears, he was probably actually mentally ill in some way, not just nuts in a nutbar way.

Gary Kamiya has more on this idea at Salon.