Dear Gov. Abbott: Yes, keep the #terrorists out of Texas! They're #teaparty folks; you can find them

The last arguable terrorist attack in Texas? As I blogged about multiple times, concluding with this, it was tea party sympathizer Larry Steven McQuilliams.

Per that post, with the links inside of it, McQuilliams had clear anti-government leanings, as mentioned on his Facebook page and other things.

His family of origin, per my post, was deep into Obama birther territory and more.

McQuilliams himself was anti-immigrant as well as a birther, and according to Austin Police, this was based on part on "Christian identity" stances he was taking.

"Christian identity" movements usually boil down to "white identity" movements, and biggest one McQuilliams was in was certainly that.

Given that this happened not quite one full year ago, Texas GOP leadership's institutional memory is short because it chooses to be.

Smoke billowed from a seven-story building after a small private plane
crashed into a building that houses an office of the IRS in Austin.

Alberto Martinez/Austin-American Statesman, via Associated Press

Before McQuilliams?

Andrew Joseph Stack, who in 2010 flew a private plane into the Austin IRS office, in what can only be called a suicide bombing. And, while right-wing bloggers tried to distance themselves and their movement from Stack, anti-IRS animus is much more the province of the far right than the far left, or what bits of a far left exist in America today.

And, yes, it's still a terrorist attack even if done by an individual that's not part of a group, if terroristic intent is involved.

The state of Texas even has the crime of "terroristic threats" on the book of criminal offenses.

Before that?

David Koresh/Wikipedia

Well, going back just over 20 years? White, Christian, anti-government? Remember a guy named David Koresh?

After Koresh but before the election of President Obama, the Southern Poverty Law Center reminds us of the Texas Militia, the Republic of Texas movement, and other right-wing anti-government groups, plus the good old Ku Klux Klan.

So, by all means, Gov. Abbott, I wish you would keep terrorists out of the state. You can start by being honest about who the terrorists are.

But, you won't.

You never will.

Meanwhile, Andrea Grimes of Texas Observer had almost exactly the same thought, including naming McQuilliams, Stack and Koresh, while also throwing in a healthy touch of snark.

I think President Obama should not only call Abbott's bluff on refugees, but go one better.

Let's make Jade Helm 2016 about the military doing humanitarian work resettling refugees — at the Governor's Mansion in Austin.

Oh, and "thoughts and prayers" won't bring back the dead killed by wingnuts.

Terrorists - white and well right here in Texas, #Islamophobia #SamHarris

Sam Harris irks me for many reasons.

First, he's a shallow thinker in general who got lucky to hit the initial surge of Gnu Atheist fandom with "The End of Faith."

Second, he's either ignorant of philosophy of religion, psychology of religion and sociology of religion, or else he's a liar. In that book, he claimed Buddhism was just a psychology. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Even atheistic Buddhists still almost to a man or woman believe in two metaphysical principles — karma and reincarnation — and conduct social practices geared toward how they stand in relation to those two principles.

Third is his Islamophobia.

A: Contra fellow Ig-Gnu-rant Atheist Jerry Coyne, Islamophobia exists. It's the Gnu Atheist Christianophobia taken to a further level of stereotyping.

B. Contra Coyne at the same link, Harris has advocated torture in the "War on Terror."
B1: He's done so in cases beyond Alan Dershowitz's stereotypical "ticking time bomb."
B2: Even Dershowitz's stereotypical case doesn't make torture right morally.
B3: Torture doesn't work.
B4: Harris has also discussed the possibility of using nuclear weapons in the "War on Terror."

Now it's true that, contra Al-Jazeera, Islam is not a "race."

But, by wanting to use race along with allegedly Islamic looks in clothing, Sam Harris has touted airport security profiling of Mooslims, even when he's been shown that it won't work.

Why doesn't Sam Harris want to profile theoretically Christian white extremists as much as Moooslims?

After all, in the last couple of years, they've probably killed more Americans than Moooslim terrorists.

A federal assistant DA has withdrawn himself from a case in Houston against Aryan Brotherhood, based on the shooting last week of the Kaufman County state DA, and the ADA for the county earlier this year, confirming, it appears, that Aryan Brotherhood is a prime suspect. More backstory here.

I know that the Aryan Brotherhood doesn't dip into the bible to try to help justify its white supremacist claims, but other militant groups and individuals do.

Tim McVeigh ring a bell?

Once again, the terrorists are within as well as without

And once again, Texas, a state where white extremists have been found with massive weapons caches, a state where someone crashes a plane into a government building, is ground zero.

Once again, contra both wingnuts and a certain Sam Harris strain of Gnu Atheists, the "real terrorists" are often white folks in the heartland. Looks like a assistant DA in Texas, about 30 miles from Dallas, was fatally shot over fighting the Aryan Brotherhood in court.

Before (a federal) release was issued, The Dallas Morning News credited "authorities with knowledge of the assistant DA's caseload" as saying he was "heavily involved" in an investigation of the Aryan Brotherhood. According to the release, Ben Christian Dillon, aka "Tuff", of Houston, and James Marshall Meldrum, aka "Dirty", both "agreed to commit multiple acts of murder, robbery, arson, kidnapping and narcotics tracking" for the Aryan Brotherhood. 

Now, with Wayne La Pierre of the NRA having just testified before the Senate on gun control issues, how will this affect that? How will gun control advocates from President Obama down use, yes, use, this moment?

And, beyond gun control, but without going as bounceback nutbar as folks like the Southern Poverty Law Center can, how will Obama use this issue to address domestic white power, white supremacy terrorism?

Aryan Nations being revived?

As if some of the more nutty national healthcare protestors aren’t enough, this is serious.

Only Wal-Mart would sell a birthday cake …

With the full name of 3-year-old Adolf Hitler Campbell fully spelled out, after another grocery store rejected A.H.’s parents’ request for the second year in a row.

Note to daddy Heath Campbell, who looks like he’s an Aryan Nation wannabe, and who named his two other kinds with weird, quasi-German names, and mamma Deborah — If you’re going to name your kid some effing “in your face” name, expect results like that from the other grocer and bake your own birthday cake.

And, uhh... nice cocaine eyes, too, dude.

Also, per a commenter, mamma Deborah’s teeth aren’t quite WHITE enough for an Aryan goddess, are they?