TPM links to a KOMO story at the P-I web site concerning the arrest of an Everett woman accused in a double homicide in Arizona. Turns out she’s described as a leader of the “Minutemen American Defense.” From KOMO via the P-I:
An outspoken anti-immigration activist from Everett has been arrested in Arizona in connection to a deadly home invasion robbery.
Shawna Forde, the executive director of the Minutemen American Defense, is one of three accused in the shooting deaths of 29-year-old Raul Flores and his daughter, 9-year-old Brisenia Flores, at their home in Arivaca, Ariz., a town 10 miles north of the Mexican border.
Two others – 34-year-old Jason Bush and 42-year-old Albert Gaxiola – were arrested. All three have been charged with two counts of first-degree murder, one count of first-degree burglary and one count of aggravated assault.
According to the Pima County Sheriff’s Office, two men and a woman posing as police officers forced their way into the Flores ‘ home in the middle of the night on May 30.
It is not known exactly what transpired next, but Raul Flores and his daughter were shot and killed. The girl’s mother was wounded and is recovering in a local hospital, deputies said.
The Everett Herald ran a piece about Forde in February after she made allegations that Mexican drug cartel figures were somehow connected to the shooting of her ex-husband, but it’s fair to say the article casts serious doubt on that contention. There’s also some interesting um, other stuff. From the Everett Herald on Feb. 22, 2009:
Exactly what Forde does on the border is unclear. She reports being interviewed about immigration issues by dozens of journalists; a handful of articles appear to have been published.
Her Web site features shaky videos, often focusing on the garbage left in the desert by people sneaking into the country. On one film clip, Forde claims to have found a place in the desert where human smugglers regularly rape women. On another, she suggests border agents have found bodies of drug smugglers whom she claims were duped by terrorists into carrying radioactive materials into the U.S., hidden inside loads of marijuana.
On the video, Forde says the smugglers’ bodies can’t be touched because “the radiation is so heavy (it) will kill you on contact.”
Forde is circumspect when questioned about how her group works with law enforcement agencies. In the interview at The Herald, she described presenting what she called “after-action reports” to a man she declined to identify, except to say he is a former employee of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Very sad. Obviously law abiding groups that want to change immigration laws cannot be held accountable for what appear to the heinous actions of a lunatic, but it’s also clear that the lunatics are acting out with increased frequency right now.
What’s also sad is that there are no easy answers. The First Amendment gives us all very broad freedoms, especially when it comes to political speech, meaning that all citizens need to evaluate the credibility of those who speak and the types of persons with whom they associate. Who would imagine that people who run around in the desert playing army would have mental issues?
The responsible thing to do right now is decry violence. The killings of a doctor, military recruiters, a museum guard and a nine year old child are reprehensible examples of deranged losers using politics as a cover for their inability to function in the world, and reasonable Americans are sickened by the current outbreak of violence.
Also, for people who consider themselves ‘survivalists’, we should drop them off in their underwear 8o miles north of Anchorage in the dead of winter — just to test their survival skills.
Who needs survivalistes who can’t survive?
America’s Far Right fringe has always been a violent and criminal element. For as long as I can remember, anyway, which is back to the early 1950s. These wackos were gun nuts and killers back then, too.
The only thing that’s changed is the mainstream media now has a strong rightwing bias, and has used its power over mass communications to dress up rightwing extremism with a patina of respectability.
Now that rightwing terrorists and murderers are killing people all across the country, hopefully the American public will see through the media propaganda, strip away that ersatz respectability, and understand that American’s rightwing extremists are every bit as dangerous to ordinary citizens and our freedoms as Hitler’s brownshirts and Stalin’s thugs. They are violent revolutionaries who talk about overthrowing our government, and they need to be stopped, even if it takes the 101st Airborne Division to contain them.
Some of those “law abiding” have pretty close ties to the crazies. Will be be seeing Lou Dobbs renounce his?
@2
Miller Freeman (Kemper’s Grand Dad) was beating the anti-asian drum way back in the 19-teens.
http://depts.washington.edu/ci.....iction.htm
The more things change, the more they stay the same…
Jon spews:
Folks are obviously accountable for their actions. It appears there is so much instantaneous and sensationalism to news now…worldwide. It fuels more terrorism.
Growing up in the 50’s & 60’s was a blessing.
We weren’t overwhelmed 24/7.
Nutjobs want publicity….and they are getting it…24/7
I’m just sayin’
BTW–
Forde was kicked out of the Minutemen Civil Defense Corps several years ago and formed her own group, Minutemen American Defense.
Thanks to pudge for catching this.
Anyone can form a group and call it whatever they want. If some one quits the Democratic Party and starts their own Progressive Democratic Party and screws goats…does that mean the real Democratic Party is a bunch of goatf*ckers??
I’m just askin’!
Be careful about lumping folks together because they share a similiar name…or race…or gender.
“… deranged losers using politics as a cover for their inability to function in the world,…”
Other deranged losers burn down buildings or car dealerships because they are enviro-nazis. Still other deranged losers take up blogging.
We’ve still got to get a handle on the southern border. We can’t adopt Mexico and the rest of Latin America. Sorry.
Well, I guess this solves the mystery of who killed her estranged husband.
@7,8
Yep & Yep.
But, when you play the degrees of separation with the Right it’s really easy to connect folks like Dobbs, Malkin & Beck with violence prone far-right whack jobs with just a couple of steps. That’s not so much the case with the left.
Dobbs> Sheriff Joe Arpaio> Neo-nazi Thomas Coletto & the fun loving folks at Storm Front.
http://crooksandliars.com/davi.....-his-neo-n
Well, I think these domestic terrorists, this whack job racist worthless sack, the jerk who went guns blazing in the Holocaust museum and the fella that killed the doctor…STRAIGHT TO GUANTANAMO. Report for your water torture, you worthless sacks of shit.
@11
You forgot the Army requiter shooter in AR.
OP states it very well that these are “deranged losers using politics as a cover for their inability to function in the world….”
Anyone who can’t see the wisdom in that statement take heed–it is highly likely that you have become, yes, a deranged loser yourself.
Especially insane was the debate over the museum shooter, where both sides took turns trying to link the shooter with the other side.
and so on. This is what passes for political discourse now.
@11,
You really can’t nail-down who some of these nut-jobs are sometimes. The Holocaust killer left stuff behind saying how he hated Bill O’Reilly and Fox News.
Not exactly right-wing ideology there, is it?
This guy was a total fucking loon. That’s about all you can say about him.
“We’ve still got to get a handle on the southern border.”
Got to?
No we don’t. things are pretty much okay and anything we would do would likely make it worse.
“We can’t adopt Mexico and the rest of Latin America. Sorry.”
Haven’t you noticed we already did?
Twenty years ago there was one large minority in the USA. Blacks. About 13% of the population.
Because, white people had enslaved them and brought them here.
Now, there’s another group, Hipanics, now about 13% too. so now it’s about 25% for blacks and Hispanics and both groups don’t like the Republicans very much.
I am afraid that the border door is already open and the influx of Mexicans into the land we took from Mexico, illegally, without their permission, has already happened.
This is a fast growing group too and most studies show that of the millions of legals nearly every family has relatives who are here illegally….
so, if the republicans want to lose every election going forward, the kind of talk about “We’ve still got to get a handle on the southern border. We can’t adopt Mexico and the rest of Latin America. Sorry” is going to be a big reason why.
And tell me — why isn’t you don’t like Latin Americans in the first place? Why not welcome them?
Ghengis,
I’m not a Republican.
As far as Latin Americans go, I don’t like or dis-like them. I just don’t want to have uncontrolled illegal immigration into this country. If you prefer that, fine, but don’t get pissy because I don’t agree.
As far as the land grabbing goes, do you support ceding Texas, New Mexico, California, parts of Oklahoma and Colorado back to Mexico? Who are the Mexicans anyway? Aren’t they the Spanish guys that stole the land of the Aztecs and Mayas? Didn’t the Aztecs steal land from some of the lesser tribes of Mesoamerica?
Mexico is a fucking mess because a few families from the Spanish land grant days own and control the land. Do you suppose we should just hand over California and the rest to this country run by a bunch of fucking descendants of Spanish scoundrels?
No, I don’t think I can go for that. Mexico will NEVER be anything unless the people of Mexico (especially the ones coming here illegally) change Mexico. We can’t do that for them, and to allow uncontrolled immigration ain’t helpful either.
@6 You’ve got a point, Cynical. Quite a few Republicans are trying to pass themselves off as Democrats, independents, or “non-partisans” these days.
@14
While he might have hated Fox news, the guy at the Holocaust museum was pretty standard issue far-right, KKK. And a complete whack-job as well.
This is good to hear.
The Minutemen are examples of out of control paranoia. There’s nothing noble or worthwhile about their organization, and certainly not of a more idiotic offshoot.
The people who patrol the Canadian border looking for illegals would be funny if they didn’t spawn worthless humans like this gem.
The absolute IRONY of white people being against immigration. Very funny.
The same can be said for anyone, anyone at all complaining about Mexicans in California, Arizona NEW MEXICO and Texas. Apparently you people don’t remember the Alamo either.
@20
If they did kick all the “illegals” out then they’d complain about how much food costs, how much it costs to get your car detailed, complain about the Koreans or some other minority group or how things were so much better back in the good old days…
Damn straight.
Those right wing wacko weather underground terrorists with their plans to kill cops.
Why bush hung around people like that is beyond me.
@14 Give it a rest. White supremacists are far right extremists. All of them. There’s no such thing as a liberal white supremacist.
@22 Ayers, reprehensible jerk that he is, never killed anyone. The only reason he didn’t serve time was because of prosecutorial misconduct. Blame the prosecutors for that!
These rightwing swine invaded a private home to steal money and drugs with the premeditated intent of killing all the occupants so there would be no witnesses. Repulsive as he is, nothing Ayers did remotely approaches the odiousness of this crime. This ought to be a death penalty case.
Oh, and as long as we’re talking about old history, let’s not omit that it was a RIGHTWING WHACKJOB who blew up 169 people, including two dozen little kids, in Oklahoma City.
@22
You’re talking about 1 guy that’s ancient history. We’re talking about a whole bunch of folks that are in the here and now and have a pretty good track record of killing people.
Funny how when the blood soaked history of the right is brought up, (Oklahoma City, Birmingham, countless murders of doctors, Alan Berg, Centralia Massacre, thousands of lynchings, etc. etc. etc.) the only thing the fascists can counter with is “ayers!”
Yawn.
14/18 Maybe he’s anti-Catholic, too. Not that Bill-o, much as he might think so, is the epitome of a good Catholic.
4 “Growing up in the 50’s & 60’s was a blessing.
We weren’t overwhelmed 24/7.
Nutjobs want publicity….and they are getting it…24/7”
Sadly, though we didn’t hear as much about it, there was plenty of nasty stuff going on. The powers that be…er, were apparently didn’t think it mattered as much if the victims were poor or Black or gay or female or in some other group that were considered “uppity” if we so much as heard a peep from them.
The difference being “(Oklahoma City, Birmingham, countless murders of doctors, Alan Berg, etc.” weren’t hanging out with the president.
Ayers is a close friend of the president.
Why is one anti-american terrorist different from the others if not political affiliation.
p.s. If you meant kkk thousands of lynchings, ask robert byrd which party he was and still is a member of.
Roger Retard said:
“The only thing that’s changed is the mainstream media now has a strong rightwing bias”
You win joke of the week.
The difference being “(Oklahoma City, Birmingham, countless murders of doctors, Alan Berg, etc.” weren’t hanging out with the president.
How silly of me… killing is only wrong if you know the president. Using that logic, I guess you won’t mind if I blow your head off.
In addition to the fact that Ayers never killed anyone, and in fact tried to minimize that possibility, Ayers is not a “close friend” of the president – that is demonstrably false.
Were you one of the seven Westboro monkeys running around town today?
@31
Were you one of the seven Westboro monkeys running around town today?
Please don’t insult the intelligence of those monkeys.
What, the Phelps Clan was in Seattle today?
Did anyone see if PuddyTraitor (Fred’s #1 fan) was with them?