Why Progressives Have Botched the Fight Over Common Core

[Above: An anti-Common Core video from those friends of progressives, the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity.]

I've been forced to conclude that the people leading the progressive side of the fight against the new Common Core educational standards are dishonest and disingenuous -- either that, or they are incredibly naive politically, and are incapable of coming to terms with the reality of their situation.

Because what they have been doing is, frankly, standing back and letting far-right extremists and corporate-education supporters hijack their issue, naively believing that sharing the goal of derailing CCSS was good enough, and failing to realize that they were aligning themselves with the very people dedicated to the destruction of progressive politics across a broad swath of issues, including education.

Instead of denouncing these elements and their falsehoods, their conspiracy theories, their fearmongering and their hatemongering – all of which are elements of the far right’s campaign against CCSS – these supposed progressives have soft-pedaled their presence, referring to them as the “Tea Party” element (when in fact these folks are much more radical than that) and suggesting that, well at least the right-wing folks have demonstrated that CCSS can be stopped.

Well, yeah, it can be stopped, if you’re willing to lie, and fearmonger, and hatemonger, and cast the entire proceedings as a product of a nefarious New World Order conspiracy. If that’s your template for success, please count me out.

I mean, come on, folks. You really need to stop and assess what you’re doing when the Koch-funded Americans For Prosperity – one of the leading proponents of corporate education – avidly joins your side and attacks your opponents. But instead of giving progressives pause, all we hear are excuses.

I was forced to finally reach this conclusion by education reformer Diane Ravitch’s recent post attacking the Southern Poverty Law Center for its devastating study exposing the far right’s involvement in the CCSS debate.

Ravitch, rather than explaining that progressives wish to have nothing to do with John Birch Society paranoia, instead wishy-washes the situation: “I think there are plenty of well meaning people on different sides of the Common Core issue,” she writes. “It serves no useful purpose to divide people into good guys and bad guys.”

The naivete this reveals is astonishing. Really, Ms. Ravitch? You think that people who proclaim that "Common Core will turn every one of your children gay" are well-meaning? You think they are contributing usefully to this dialogue? Do you think we ought to be paying attention and thoughtfully heeding such arguments as part of our democratic process? Or should we, perhaps, be alarmed that such hatefulness and fearmongering is polluting what should be a rational debate? -- That being the point, of course, of the SPLC's study.

Then Ravitch goes on to proclaim high-mindedly that “our national discussion should deal with consequential issues, such as the quality of the standards, whether they are appropriate for students of different age groups, and how they are likely to narrow or increase these gaps among different student groups.”

Gee, that would be great. Now if only the people on the far right’s side of the debate would actually heed that advice, because the entirety of their campaign against CCSS has focused on all the non-issues that Ravitch thinks are a distraction.

And then she attacks the SPLC for pointing all of this out, calling their study “one sided”. She writes:

Unfortunately, SPLC chose to paint opposition to the CC as Tea Party and/or rightwing extremists who want to destroy public education. This is odd indeed because the critics and supporters of CC are strange bedfellows.

Either Ravitch cannot read, or she is dishonest. Because the study in fact goes to considerable pains to make clear that the opposition to CCSS is broad based. Here’s exactly what it says:

To be sure, education experts of all political stripes have raised important questions about the Common Core. Are the standards too rigorous? Are they rigorous enough? Should children and teachers be evaluated on standardized testing? Has there been ample time for implementation and teacher training? These and other issues should be the focus of robust debate—one rooted in the facts.

Unfortunately, the issues are being obscured by a cloud of overheated hyperbole, misinformation and far-right propaganda.

…

Legitimate issues obscured

To be sure, criticism of the Common Core—which is backed by the Obama administration and funded, in part, by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation—is coming from all points on the political spectrum and from some leading education experts. Critics have raised important issues that should be thoroughly debated, such as: whether the standards were adequately tested; whether we can have great education that isn’t simply “teaching to the test”; whether there has been ample time for implementation and teacher training; and, significantly, whether it’s wise to evaluate teachers on the results of Common Core-aligned tests.

But these and other issues are being obscured by a cloud of fear-mongering propaganda and extremist hyperbole. The attacks from the far right stand apart from the legitimate criticism because of their incendiary language, their apocalyptic warnings, and their reliance on distortions, outright falsehoods and antigovernment conspiracy theories.

…

Current debates

Many of the legitimate debates surrounding the Common Core focus on concerns that have been central to education reform discussions since the 1980s. It is unclear whether the fringe elements of the radical right are ignorant of this history or whether they are deliberately distorting the facts. What is clear is that the unfounded and paranoid rhetoric surrounding the standards distracts from the important debates that are happening among highly informed scholars, state officeholders, policymakers, educators, and families across America. The following are a sampling of some of the valid Common Core-related concerns under debate:

• Education historian and researcher Diane Ravitch has asserted that the Common Core was not developed according to the principles established by the American National Standards Institute. Ravitch says her reason for opposing the standards is not the content but rather concerns about the transparency of the development process and the exclusion of informed, concerned interests such as early childhood educators and special education experts.

• Some critics see the Gates Foundation’s support as overwhelmingly disproportionate. The fact that the foundation not only funded—directly and indirectly—such a large percentage of the development of the standards but also the validation and some implementation measures has raised concerns about the ethics and desirability of a single private entity being able to influence a public initiative of the Common Core’s scope.

• Some educators oppose the Common Core out of concerns that the standards depart from best practices for teaching and supporting culturally diverse youth. One such critique refers to the reduced emphasis on student reflection and experience in the writing standards. Others point to the lack of diversity in exemplar texts.

• Many teachers and administrators find the implementation timeline of the Common Core unrealistic, noting that the rigor of the standards has bumped the bar so high that it will take years to actually reach it. Meanwhile, pressure on schools to show immediate and measurable improvement makes it difficult for them to chart a slower and more deliberate path to implementation.

• While Race to the Top funding is not directly tied to Common Core adoption, it is tied to the adoption of college and career readiness standards, and more points were awarded to states that adopted the Common Core. Some critics saw the Race to the Top stipulations as federal strong-arming that allowed the Obama administration to paint state adoption as entirely voluntary when, in fact, there were potential financial consequences for opting out.

• Many progressives criticize the role that the Common Core plays in magnifying the the toxic testing culture that NCLB and its high-stakes testing made a feature of life in public schools. They note that corporate interests are served whenever testing companies have a mandated market, and that the quick implementation period is, in fact, feeding these interests by creating an urgent need for implementation materials.

I still believe these are significant issues that need to be addressed. But guess what? Once the far right has hijacked the opposition to CCSS and dominates the opposition, and comes to represent that opposition, those issues will never be heard or debated.

Instead, we will find ourselves explaining over and over to people that no, this is not a U.N./New World Order conspiracy to brainwash your children and turn them gay.

And then progressives will wonder why no one takes them seriously.

Idaho’s GOP Gubernatorial Primary Debate Reveals Deep Streak of Extremism

[Cross-posted at Hatewatch.]

Usually, political debates are an opportunity for candidates to provide voters with enough information for them to make informed decisions before filling out their ballots. But Wednesday night’s Republican gubernatorial primary debate in Boise, Idaho, featuring the state’s top four conservative candidates, raised more questions than it answered.

Two of the four candidates – a foul-mouthed biker from Nampa named Harley Brown and a bearded anti-abortion activist named Walt Bayes – had previously run for office but garnered few votes. Their show-stealing debate performances, broadcast on Idaho’s public television network, revealed why.

Both men were on the program at the insistence of incumbent Gov. L. Butch Otter, who was accused by his Tea Party rival, State Sen. Russ Fulcher, of inviting the men to participate so that he could avoid Fulcher’s own questions.

Brown set the tone by explaining early on in the debate that God told him to run for president while he was going through personal trouble: “I cried out to God. I said, ‘How about putting me back on active duty and making me a battalion commander?’ Long story short, he says, ‘No, son, I got a higher rank for you. I’m gonna make you a commander in chief.’ And I stagger not at his promise. I’m gonna get into that more with you.”

Brown paused briefly and looked at everyone staring at him, and said: “Don’t think I’m crazy, ‘cause I’m not.”

However, while Brown was mostly colorful and crude, Bayes was clearly the most radical of the lot, declaring abortion outright murder, saying he would shoot authorities if they came for his children, and implying he thought LGBT people should be put to death.

One of Bayes’ early statements was a rant about abortion, claiming it was against state law to even perform the procedure: “If I’m governor, I am going to enforce the law. And somebody says, ‘What about the Supreme Court?’ If the Supreme Court goes to hell, I’m not followin’. And I’m telling you folks, when you murder 56 million babies, you’re asking for our country to be demolished.”

He read from Scripture – Romans 1:24-32, to be exact – when he was asked about the recent court decision overturning Idaho’s ban on same-sex marriage, saying: “My main loyalty is to God Almighty, and what he says is what I go by. And this is part of the Bible.”

The reading concluded with the line: “Who, knowing the judgment of God, that they would commit such things, are worthy of death.”

Bayes also boasted of having been arrested for his home schooling advocacy when he was asked if he could govern. “They told me we couldn’t home-school. I prayed about it. I stood on my hind legs like a man. I told ‘em what I thought of ‘em, and the television would talk to me for thirty minutes or an hour: Well what would you do if they came out to take your kids? Well, you’d shoot ‘em! What else would you do?”

Bayes also had a scathing assessment of the two political parties: “I honestly think half of the Republican Party is Democrats and half of the Democratic is Communist.”

Near the end of the debate, Bayes exclaimed: “Our energy plants that are run by atomic – they can stand one-fifteenth of an earthquake like that one in Japan! And my Bible says they’re gonna get worse and worse!”

While Brown and Bayes kept the audience’s attention with their outlandish pronouncements, the two more mainstream candidates – incumbent Gov. L. Butch Otter and State Sen. Russ Fulcher, a Tea Party favorite – held wonky discussions mostly between themselves about serious state policies and politics.

The two fringe candidates also tried their hand at policy, voicing sentiments similar to those heard on the right surrounding the standoff at Cliven Bundy’s Nevada ranch.

“The first thing I want to do is take Idaho ground back from the federal government,” said Bayes. “The Constitution – the Idaho Constitution – states plainly that the federal government only owns a few buildings. The land is ours. We’ve got as much right to all the land in this state, including the wilderness, as New York has Manhattan. I’ve got as much right to see Manhattan Island like they paid twenty-four dollars for as they have to come out here and look at our wilderness. We’ve got a bunch of Eastern idiots running everything!”

Brown chimed in: “I agree with Mr. Bayes. The key is getting our land back from the feds. And here’s my
plan of attack.  … OK, you go in there and you use spiritual warfare. Nobody – everybody talks about the natural. But I’m gonna talk about the other realm we need to extend. You bind those evil spirits that are behind the feds with the blood of Jesus, the name of Jesus, the power of entombment of the Holy Spirit, the power of agreement, the Word of God. Take air superiority, and then go in there with your tanks, on the ground, with [colleague Chris] Troupis’s lawsuits. Blitzkrieg.”

The somewhat astonished moderator interjected that the question she had asked was about taxes. Brown was unruffled: “Taxes are a drag,” he said. “I don’t even like to think about it. Fighting the feds is more exciting for me.”

Brown was also clearly unapologetic about the bigoted jokes and remarks he makes at his campaign website, “The Candid Candidate”. “You might find it offensive, but I hit everybody — Jews, Irish people, black jokes and religious jokes,” Brown said when asked about the site. “I don’t like political correctness! Can I say this? It sucks! … I’m about as politically correct as your proverbial turd in a punchbowl. And I’m proud of it. And I’m going for the vote of the real people.”

Indeed, as Idaho Statesman columnist Dan Popkey reported, Brown made a crude racist joke about “wetbacks” during the warmup for the debate and was warned that he would be cut off from questioning if he made such comments during the debate.

At the closing, Brown finished the tale of how God told him he would become president, including a mention of “trumped up restraining orders” that prevented him from seeing his kids. He also waved a signed statement from a “Masai prophet” that supposedly confirmed that God had told him this.

“You have your choice, folks,” Brown concluded, waving at his fellow candidates. “A cowboy, a curmudgeon, a biker, or a normal guy. Take your pick… We’re leaving it up to you.”

Former Zimmerman Defender Taaffe Now Says He Should Have Been Found Guilty

[Cross-posted at Hatewatch.]

Frank Taaffe, the tough-talking friend of George Zimmerman who appeared on multiple TV programs to defend the Florida man’s actions in the shooting of Trayvon Martin, has had an apparent change of heart.

Taaffe, who has a history as a white supremacist as well as a criminal background, told a reporter for Orlando, Fla.’s News 13 that he now believes that Zimmerman “racially profiled” Martin the day he was shot, and that he should have been found guilty by the jury that eventually acquitted him last year.

“What I know of George and his tendencies and also my opinion is that he racially profiled Trayvon Martin that night because if that had been a white kid on a cell phone, walking through our neighborhood, he wouldn’t have stayed on him the way he did and that’s a fact and I believe that in my heart,” Taaffe told reporter John Davis.

For many months, Taaffe said just the opposite, and did so on national television on numerous occasions, depicting Martin as a drug-addled, thuggish teenager and declaring Zimmerman’s innocence. “It’s really sad that he has already been convicted in the public media and has already been sentenced to the gas chamber,” he lamented in an interview with NBC’s Miami affiliate.

Taaffe said he’s now recanting his earlier statements in order to clear his conscience. “I can only ask for the country to forgive me, and today I believe that he racially profiled him based on the color of his skin.”

Davis said that some “may wonder what does Frank Taaffe have to gain by doing this,” before asking if he was was working on a book or TV show. Taaffe said no, “I’m just working on me right now and getting right with God.”

Taaffe told Davis that he was driven to reassess his views after the death of his brother last month, as well as his two sons’ deaths in recent years. He added a message for Trayvon Martin’s parents: “I’m sorry that you lost your son, I know what that’s like and I wish things had been different.”

It was not clear whether Taaffe now has similar regrets over the crudely racist things he uttered on air while campaigning on Zimmerman’s behalf – most notably on the white nationalist podcast “The White Voice.” On that show, he attacked Oprah Winfrey as a “nigger” and said “the only time that a Black life is vindicated is when a White person kills them.”

On MSNBC, Schultz and Schweitzer Raise Concerns about Direction of Western ‘Revolt’

[Cross-posted at Hatewatch.]

MSNBC’s Ed Schultz hosted former Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer on Monday night to discuss the growing “revolt” over federal land use policies in Western states, embodied in the recent armed standoff with federal officers at the Bundy Ranch in Nevada. Schweitzer has deep experience with contentious land use issues and dealing with federal agencies such as the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).

As Schultz pointed out, antigovernment animus – rife with extremist “Patriots” and militiamen, as well as ample weaponry – appears to be building. Just last week in Utah, a BLM livestock wrangler was threatened on Interstate 15, and protesters – including two Bundy sons – intentionally violated a ban on motorized vehicles in a natural area, put in place to protect nearby archaeological sites.

Schultz blamed the rise on right-wing media: “We all know where this antigovernment sentiment started, don’t we?”

Schweitzer, who has had plenty of experience in dealing with “Patriot” extremists in his own state, including in the Montana legislature, was particularly scathing in his assessment of the motivations of the people involved in the “revolt”:

SCHWEITZER: And now this bunch, this Cliven Bundy bunch, coming over from Nevada giving advice to people in Utah on how to deal with the BLM? My God, that’s like the Aryan Nations giving advice to Donald Sterling. This bunch, the Bundy bunch are grifters, they haven’t paid their fees, they haven’t cooperated with the federal government, they say they don’t even recognize the United States government. And these Tea Party, militia Foxtrotters, they’re a bunch of ne’er-do-wells – they aren’t ranchers, they aren’t loggers, they aren’t people who have legitimate businesses on the land. You wouldn’t get ranchers to stand next to Bundy. And people who are in the mining business, and the oil and gas business on federal land, they wouldn’t stand next to these people because they make a living on that land, and they listen to the rule of the land.

Schultz pointed out that the fanatical behavior of the “Patriots” raised real concerns about the rule of law: “So now we have got government officials in this country wondering, ‘What do we do if we go out and try to enforce the law, and people are openly armed with assault weapons?’”

“No one knows where this is going to end,” he added. “And no one knows how it’s going to end. And it’s kinda scary. It has the roots of a movement that won’t end really peacefully. I hate to say that. But this is how it goes, isn’t it?”

That was the conundrum he presented to Schweitzer: “Are we now seeing a culture develop in America: ‘Well, you can go ahead and do what you want, we’ll just decide which law we are going to uphold?’”

Schweitzer agreed that it was a real concern. “We are a land that has rule of law,” he observed. “We’re not Yemen. We’re not Somalia. We’re a land that has laws. And we all have to follow those laws. We don’t get to decide which ones we’re going to follow and which ones we don’t. That’s what a civilized society does.”

Schweitzer also said he was glad that the FBI had announced it was investigating the people who had pointed weapons at federal agents during the Bundy standoff in Nevada on April 12: “If you point a gun at law enforcement or federal officials, you should have no expectation of this ending good for you,” he said.

In Wake of Missoula Shooting, Montana Legislator Rips NRA

Even in a state like Montana, where guns have long been woven into the culture, even in this paranoiac-gun-crazy age, there are still some lines that no one can or should cross. One of them is old-fashioned premeditated murder.

We all saw this "stand your ground" mentality in play with the Trayvon Martin case. And in the recent murder conviction of the Minneapolis man who lay in wait in his home so he could gun down the two teenagers who came to burglarize his place in cold blood.

Now there's a case in Missoula, Montana, a state where guns have been part of the culture since the days of the Old West, and have never ceased being so. But everyone knows when someone is hiding behind a law to commit cold-blooded murder, as happened again in a case like the Minnesota one, involving a homeowner angry at being burglarized.

From the New York Times:

Around midnight on April 27, a 17-year-old exchange student from Germany named Diren Dede left the host home where he played Xbox and drained cans of Sprite to set off with a friend through his dark hillside neighborhood. They passed a home whose garage door hung partially open. Using a cellphone for light, Mr. Dede headed in.

Inside the house, motion sensors alerted Markus Kaarma, 29, to an intruder’s presence. Two recent burglaries had put Mr. Kaarma and his young family on edge, his lawyer said, and he grabbed a shotgun from the dining room and rushed outside. He aimed into the garage and, according to court documents, fired four blasts into the dark. Mr. Dede’s body crumpled to the floor.

While Mr. Kaarma has been charged with deliberate homicide, Mr. Dede’s death has set off an outcry an ocean away in Germany, exposing the cultural gulf between a European nation that tightly restricts firearms and a gun-loving Western state. In his defense, Mr. Kaarma is expected to turn to laws enacted in Montana five years ago that allow residents more legal protections in using lethal force to defend their homes.

This isn't the first time the "Castle doctrine" has been used as a pretext for cold-blooded murder in western Montana. Last year, a man in Kalispell gunned down the husband of the woman he had been sleeping with when the man came to his home, and he too claimed self-defense under the Montana law.

But this case presented clear evidence that the perpetrator set out to kill someone:

A hairstylist named Felene Sherbondy told the police that Mr. Kaarma had come into the Great Clips salon three days before the shooting and talked about how he had been waiting up with his shotgun for three nights “to shoot some kid.” Ms. Sherbondy told the police that Mr. Kaarma was being “extremely vulgar and belligerent,” according to court documents.

Al Sharpton's PoliticsNation show tackled the case earlier this week. And Sharpton got right to the point, exploring the reality that this "stand your ground" mentality was creating a culture that encourages people to commit cold-blooded murder.

He invited Montana legislator Rep. Ellie Boldman Hill of Missoula -- a standout progressive in a state where that is a rarity -- on to discuss her efforts to overturn Montana's "Castle doctrine" laws, or at least reform them.

And Hill left little doubt where all this originates:

HILL: That’s my contention, Reverend. These types of laws have created a culture in our country of vigilante justice that has expanded too far. I believe that this individual is using the “castle doctrine” although it’s premeditated murder – just like we’ve seen in Florida, with Trayvon Martin, and now we’re seeing out here in the West with Montana. This isn’t a rural or urban issue, this isn’t a Republican or Democrat issue. This is an issue of the NRA taking our gun laws, taking our self-defense laws, and running amok in a dangerous way that has made our communities less safe, and has now resulted in a culture of violence where people are being murdered in the name of their “castle”.

Hill deserves kudos for her bravery and her thoughtfulness. Now if only her fellow Democrats would act like the common-sense Western Democrats of old and rally behind her effort.

White Supremacist Celebrates Second Year as GOP Committeeman with Stormfront Post

[Cross-posted at Hatewatch.]

Even though his fellow Republicans originally denounced him, Steve Smith has been unrepentant and unapologetic about his racial views in the two years since he was elected to a Republican county committee in Pennsylvania.

Nowadays, some of those Republicans even pose for photos with him at fundraisers. [Updated with statements from Rep. Lou Barletta and Matthew Dietz below.]

Steve Smith with Congressman Lou Barletta,
who later explained he did not know
about Smith's white-supremacist ideology

Smith, a former skinhead with a violent criminal record and past associations with neo-Nazi and white supremacist organizations, was elected in May 2012 to a four-year term to the Luzerne County, Pa., Republican Party county committee, on what appears to have been a single write-in vote – his own. Republican officials initially attempted to have Smith removed from the position, but eventually gave up and let Smith remain.

Smith recently posted a note at Stormfront – the white supremacist website whose users are responsible for nearly one hundred murders – observing that he had been in office for two years and was becoming entrenched in his role. “Not only were they not successful in ousting me, I was appointed as an officer in my district in my first year!” he boasted.

In the ensuing thread, his fellow white supremacists praised him for his “bravery.” Smith proclaimed: “I consistently vocalize my pro-White viewpoints at meetings. I tell perspective [sic] Congressional candidates that stopping the illegal alien invasion should be their top issue if they truly care about the future of this country.”

Steve Smith with congressional candidate Matt Connolly

One of the participants in the thread asked: “I’m curious. Do you bring along the increase in crime statistics with you when you are arguing these points? If so, how do they handle it?”

Smith answered: “These politicians know I am telling the truth. They have never even tried to debate me on these facts.”

“Unfortunately, these politicians fear being called a “racist” more than they fear the violent crime that blacks and non-white Hispanics are bringing into their neighborhoods,” he added.

This note was similar to a letter to the editor of a local newspaper, the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, that Smith wrote last year, defending and explaining his views:

I am going to present three facts on violent crimes. Young adults commit more violent crimes than older adults. Men commit more violent crimes than women. Blacks commit more violent crimes than whites.

I will bet that almost everyone will wholeheartedly agree with the first two facts without batting an eye, but the last fact seems to bring about false cries of “racism” and a litany of lame excuses.

How can it be perfectly OK to profile according to age and sex , but not race?

Has “political correctness” effectively stopped most people from publicly stating the obvious truth?

I stand behind my positions on racial issues because they are backed up with facts and logic. Here is a bet for the liberals and cultural Marxists who like to try to denigrate me for bringing up the truth on race and crime. If blacks can bring down their violent crime rate in proportion with their population in this country, and Detroit becomes one of the safest cities in the United States while maintaining its majority black population, I will quit being an advocate for whites.

Of course, the crime statistics that Smith and his cohorts obsess about have been around a long time, and their crude and oversimplistic analysis of it has been long debunked. Crime correlates with poverty, and race has been shown to be a very poor predictor of criminal tendencies. Nonetheless, that hasn’t stopped white supremacists from continuing to parade such statistics as proof of a racial root to crime.

Steve Smith with congressional candidate
Matthew Dietz

 

 

Smith has frequently denied that the ideology he
advances falls into the category of “white supremacism” or racism. Yet Smith’s blunt approval of race-based smears meets the basic definition of hate – namely, having beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics (e.g. race).

Smith’s whole career at this point appears to be focused on advancing his racial views. When another user on Stormfront asked him about the possibility of someday running for governor in Pennsylvania, he responded: “I may move up the food chain, but if I do it will be a local office.” “I don’t have the money or time to consider a run for Governor. I have two more years on my current term,” he said.

When he was first elected, Smith also adamantly denied that he was a white supremacist. “That’s a bunch of name-calling the liberals do,” Smith said. “I have made mistakes, and I am moving on.”

Of course, Smith also dismissed his conviction for beating up a black man, during his days as a skinhead, with stones and chunks of pavement, claiming the account wasn’t true: “He wasn’t even touched,” Smith said. He tried to pass the attack off as a case of “drunken stupidity.”

Smith remains unremorseful and unrepentant. He boasted on Stormfront about the mainstream Republicans who posed for photos with him during a recent Republican fundraiser in his district. And he posted the photos.

These included shots with Rep. Lou Barletta, R-PA (11^th District); and two Republican congressional candidates from Pennsylvania, Matt Connolly and Matthew Dietz, both competing in the state’s 17^th District.

When contacted by Hatewatch, Barletta’s campaign manager, Lance Stange, firmly distanced the congressman from Smith:

We appreciate the Southern Poverty Law Center for bringing this to our attention.  The Congressman recently spoke at a local Republican event.  As often happens, he posed for pictures with a number of people when he was finished speaking.  Apparently, one of them was Mr. Smith, whom the Congressman does not know.

The Congressman rejects the opinions expressed on the website in question and does not associate himself with those views.  He is outraged that his image would be used in any way to support such ideas.

Matthew Dietz’s campaign manager, Cynthia Anderson, also firmly distanced the candidate from Smith:

We’d like to thank the Southern Poverty Law Center for notifying us of Steve Smith’s assertions in an online posting following a Luzerne Co. Republican Committee event earlier this month. Mr. Dietz was very troubled to learn about Smith’s past and current associations; they stand in direct opposition to Mr. Dietz’s own beliefs – namely that this Nation’s greatness was indeed earned through the sacrifice of people from numerous creeds, races, and beliefs.

Matthew Dietz and his campaign have worked diligently to reach out to all families in the 17th Congressional District without exception or exclusion. We condemn any who would use his message to hurt, harm or alienate the citizens in our District, State, or Nation.

FBI Enters Investigation into Weapons Use at Bundy Ranch Standoff

[Cross-posted at Hatewatch.]

Following several weeks of silence from federal officials in the wake of the April 12 showdown between federal agents and several hundred heavily armed antigovernment “Patriots” near Cliven Bundy’s Nevada ranch, Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie confirmed Thursday that FBI agents are investigating the behavior of participants that day who aimed their loaded weapons at law enforcement officers.

Such behavior constitutes assault against an officer and a is federal crime that can carry a sentence of up to 20 years in prison when a deadly weapon is involved. FBI agents were also investigating verbal threats that were made that day.

“Everyone anticipated that this would occur,” said Gillespie. “I’ve said all along there has to be accountability for what took place on April 12.”

Assistant Sheriff Jim Lombardo, who oversaw local police operations at the scene of the standoff, earlier vowed to investigate the threats.

“Yes, there will be consequences, definitely. That is unacceptable behavior. If we let it go, it will continue into the future,” Lombardo said.

Lombardo told reporters that his officers had collected a great deal of intelligence regarding the actions of individuals that day and would move accordingly.

Gillespie said agents expected to interview every law enforcement officer who was on the scene that day near Bunkerville, including Bureau of Land Management agents and Las Vegas Metro police officers who were brought in to bolster their numbers. He said they were mostly interested in identifying the people who pointed guns at federal agents, and would be poring over photos and video taken during the confrontation to do so.

KLAS-TV also confirmed the FBI investigation.

Bundy supporters have been adamant they did not point weapons at officers at the standoff – rather, that it was the other way around. But the officers who were on the other side say that’s not the case.

“It is not a rumor,” Metro Police Sgt. Tom Jenkins told KLAS. “When we first got out there and made a left to divide I-15, that is all you saw. You saw kids and women and horses in the backdrop and then men with guns, laying on the ground, in the back of pickup trucks. We’re going, ‘Wow, this would never happen in Las Vegas.’ But it was there. That is not a rumor. It is reality and I saw it with my own eyes.”

In Wake of Bundy Standoff, Utah BLM Wrangler Threatened by Armed Men in Pickup

[Cross-posted at Hatewatch.]

At first, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) livestock wrangler driving on Tuesday along Interstate 15 in Utah, about 260 miles from the scene of the Bundy Ranch standoff in Nevada, thought he was experiencing fairly standard road rage. But then it quickly escalated into a freeway stalking with masks and guns, and ended with a law enforcement manhunt.

According to the Salt Lake Tribune, the wrangler was pulling a load of burros and horses northbound on the freeway when a dark blue extended-cab Dodge pickup pulled up alongside him and a man gestured at him with a one-fingered salute. The wrangler eased up and let the men drive past him, then he continued on. Just after passing the town of Nephi, the men caught up to him again.

This time, they were wearing hoods. And they showed him a sign that read: “You Need to Die.” Then one of them pointed what appeared to be a Glock handgun at the wrangler.

As the wrangler again dropped back, he tried to get a license plate number. But it had been covered with duct tape.

The wrangler notified state police in Nephi, and they immediately began a manhunt for the men in the pickup. So far, that search has not produced any results.

In response, Utah BLM employees began removing the agency’s decals from their vehicles as a “precaution,” according to Eric Reid, the wrangler’s supervisor at the BLM field office in Fillmore. “We’re toning things down.”

Reid told the Tribune that he didn’t believe the men issued threats because of the agency’s wild horse roundup program, but rather were motivated by antigovernment animus, such as that still festering 260 miles down the desert highway in Nevada. Reid thought the men just wanted to harass a federal employee.

“It’s one of those things now we’re going to be dealing with,” Reid said. “A lot of [people] have taken that attitude toward the government.”

Officials at the BLM’s West District, according to a report from KUTV, sent out a memo urging employees to “be prepared to encounter unfriendlies.”

“We never know in life when we will cross paths with these types,” the message states. “We are hopeful this will be a lone instance and it will fade from memory.”

The state BLM office issued a firm statement through spokesperson Megan Crandall: “Threats against Bureau of Land Management employees will not be tolerated, and we are pursuing this matter with local law enforcement.”