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    john boehner

    People attend a rally at James Weldon Johnson Park

    Watchdog Argues Obama Admin's Cave on White Supremacy Helped Pave Way for Jacksonville Shooting

    "We must not be fooled into treating each massacre as its own tragedy," said one civil rights advocate. "The tragedy first lies in the unchecked proliferation of the violent racist ideology coupled with the unchecked access to weapons of war."

    Julia Conley
    Aug 30, 2023

    As the community of Jacksonville, Florida reeled from the killing of three Black Americans by a white supremacist at a Dollar General store last Saturday, a government watchdog said that the "lion's share" of blame for the proliferation of racist, white nationalist violence in the U.S. can be placed on Republican politicians including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former President Donald Trump—but noted that the Obama administration helped allow white supremacy to fester by caving to the GOP at a crucial moment more than a decade ago.

    Chris Lewis, a senior researcher at the Revolving Door Project, pointed to the Democratic administration's response when Republican lawmakers complained about a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) report in 2009 that warned of the growth of right-wing extremism, including the white supremacist movement, and the danger it posed to communities across the United States.

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    News
    white supremacy
    Former U.S. President Barack Obama, right, talks with then-House Speaker John Boehner in the White House.

    A Quashed Obama-Era Report on Right-Wing Extremism Could Have Saved Lives

    The Obama administration bowed its head to the Republican mob and neutered its own ability to combat domestic terrorism, helping to bring the country to where it is today.

    Chris Lewis
    Aug 30, 2023

    A few days ago, a white supremacist murdered three innocent Black people at a Dollar General store in Jacksonville. Like the shooter in Buffalo and Dylann Roof in Charleston, he had a manifesto that espoused white nationalist talking points and conspiracy theories. The prevalence of racist attacks in recent years underscores the alarming rise of right-wing domestic terrorism in the United States. The problem I want to address is: Who at the highest levels of government is to blame for this?

    In this instance, you can place much of the blame at the feet of Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has made it his mission to erase the country’s history of anti-Black violence in his state’s education system. The Biden administration could surely utilize the bully pulpit more to attack domestic terror (after all, their FBI director, Chris Wray, has stressed that one of the greatest threats to U.S. democracy is right-wing extremism). And of course, you cannot talk about the surge in right-wing terror without discussing Donald Trump, who famously refused to denounce white supremacy. But an overlooked source of the problem is that the Obama administration kowtowed to Republican lawmakers and talking heads as soon as they criticized a 2009 report sounding the alarm about the threat of right-wing extremism.

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    Opinion
    right-wing terrorism
    John Boehner: The Man of the House Never Did Man Up

    John Boehner: The Man of the House Never Did Man Up

    Beneath his blustering pretense of candor, the former Republican House Speaker is as craven and self-serving as ever.

    Mike Lofgren
    Apr 22, 2021

    Since we're talking about the Republican Party and its descent into an authoritarian leader cult, we might as well invoke Godwin's Law straightaway. Suppose you were conversing with a German in the early postwar years, and the man said that he supported Hitler's policies, in fact he voted for him in 1933? And suppose he said the only thing that tore it for him was Hitler's personal conduct, and how the Fuhrer "abused the loyalty and trust" of supporters like himself?

    You might conclude that the man had no more moral sense than a hyena, and that he only regretted the fact that things did not turn out well. Such thoughts passed through my mind on the publication of former Speaker of the House John Boehner's memoir, On the House. The mainstream political media, on the other hand, have mostly bought into the author's narrative frame that it's a book of unguarded truth-telling by a profane and hard-drinking Regular Guy.

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    Opinion

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