Day: June 5, 2025

Hate Groups Decline

One problem with our society was the growth of hate groups like KKK, neo-Nazis, Proud Boys, etc during Donny’s first term and his mash-up to his second term….but since his re-election there seems to be a decline in the hate groups…..that could be good news but I do not believe that it is all that good.

Why?

The number of white nationalist, hate, and anti-government groups around the US dropped slightly in 2024—not due to shrinking influence, but rather the opposite. In its annual “Year in Hate and Extremism” report, released Thursday, the Southern Poverty Law Center said it counted 1,371 hate and extremist groups, a 5% decline from the previous year, per the AP. In 2023, “record numbers” of white nationalist and anti-LGBTQ groups were found.

  • Hate groups: Last year, there were 533 active hate groups in the US. These include groups who express views that are anti-LBGTQ+, anti-immigrant, antisemitic, and anti-Muslim. This number has been steadily declining since reaching a historic high of 1,021 in 2018.
  • Anti-government groups: Last year, they totaled 838, an increase from recent years, according to the law center based in Montgomery, Alabama. These groups see the federal government as “tyrannical” and include militias and self-described sovereign citizens.
  • A rising influence: Male supremacy continues to gain influence as well. The SPLC documented seven new male supremacist hate groups, making the total 16. Their rhetoric espouses misogyny and strict gender roles. “I’m not sure it’s a direct result of the candidacy of Kamala Harris,” says Rachel Carroll Rivas, interim director of the SPLC’s Intelligence Project. However, SPLC researchers went into white supremacist chatrooms during the election and found “intense vilification, the claiming of demonization of Harris, as well as just the pushing of the idea falsely that women would not be qualified” to run for president.
  • ‘White Christian’ angle: Some people on the far right have also pushed a belief that white Christian culture is being threatened by a “demographic crisis,” including fewer births.
  • Why the downtick? The SPLC attributes the decline in the number of hate groups to a lesser sense of urgency to organize, as the groups’ beliefs have infiltrated politics, education, and society in general. Some of the ways they’ve achieved this are through pushing for bans on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives and book bans, the report says.

No need to join if your biases and hatreds are being addressed by the leader of the not so free world.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Agroterrorism

Agroterrorism?

Not a term that is batted around too often in the news here….but apparently it is a problem to consider….

But first a little background into this upcoming situation….

The United States enjoys a safe, plentiful, and inexpensive food supply. Americans spend only 11 percent of their income on food compared with the global average of 20 to 30 percent.1 The nation’s agricultural abundance helps drive its economic prosperity. As many as 1 of 6 jobs are linked to agriculture, a trillion-dollar industry. Agriculture-related products comprise nearly 10 percent of all U.S. exports, amounting to nearly $68 billion in 2006.2

Terrorists consider America’s agriculture and food production tempting targets. They have noticed that its food supply is among the most vulnerable and least protected of all potential targets of attack. When American and allied forces overran al Qaeda sanctuaries in the caves of eastern Afghanistan in 2002, among the thousands of documents they discovered were U.S. agricultural documents and al Qaeda training manuals targeting agriculture.

A subset of bioterrorism, agroterrorism is defined as “the deliberate introduction of an animal or plant disease for the purpose of generating fear, causing economic losses, or undermining social stability.”3 It represents a tactic to attack the economic stability of the United States. Killing livestock and plants or contaminating food can help terrorists cause economic crises in the agriculture and food industries. Secondary goals include social unrest and loss of confidence in government.

https://leb.fbi.gov/articles/featured-articles/agroterrorism-threats-to-americas-economy-and-food-supply

Now that there is some clarification of the term….what started me on this line of research was a story I read the other day and it is news….

Two Chinese nationals are facing federal charges after allegedly smuggling a crop-destroying fungus—deemed a potential agroterrorism weapon—into the United States. Yunqing Jian and Zunyong Liu are facing federal charges in Michigan over the fungus, Fusarium graminearum. Authorities allege Liu attempted to bring the fungus through Detroit’s airport to study it at a University of Michigan lab where Jian, his girlfriend, worked, the BBC reports. They say Jian may already have been handling the fungus at the lab without the necessary federal permits, the Guardian reports.

The fungus in question is known to cause disease in major crops such as wheat, barley, maize, and rice, with the potential to destroy yields and contaminate food supplies, according to the US Attorney’s Office. Its presence can lead to vomiting and liver damage if it enters the food chain and is ingested, and officials note the pathogen is cited in scientific literature as a possible “agroterrorism weapon.” It can also cause reproductive defects in both humans and livestock. It’s blamed for economic losses in the billions across the globe annually.

Prosecutors say Jian is a member of China’s Communist Party and received Chinese government funding for her research on the fungus back in China. US Attorney Jerome F. Gorgon Jr. called the case a matter of the “gravest national security concerns,” claiming the scheme involved using a university lab to further unspecified goals. The case comes at a time of heightened US-China tensions, following new visa restrictions for Chinese students announced by the Trump administration and trade disputes between Washington and Beijing. Jian has appeared in court, but Liu returned to China after being turned away at the Detroit airport last year.

This will add a new twist to the prevention of terrorism and one that we all should think about for if even a portion of our food supply is tainted it will lead to more hunger and we know what hunger can do to a people….(think French Revolution)

Just something else that we can worry about in these troubling times.

As long as we are speaking of terrorism….meet the new head of terrorism prevention for the WH….

When Thomas Fugate graduated from college last year with a degree in politics, he celebrated in a social media post about the exciting opportunities that lay beyond campus life in Texas. “Onward and upward!” he wrote, with an emoji of a rocket shooting into space.

His career blastoff came quickly. A year after graduation, the 22-year-old with no apparent national security expertise is now a Department of Homeland Security official overseeing the government’s main hub for terrorism prevention, including an $18 million grant program intended to help communities combat violent extremism.

The White House appointed Fugate, a former Trump campaign worker who interned at the hard-right Heritage Foundation, to a Homeland Security role that was expanded to include the Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships. Known as CP3, the office has led nationwide efforts to prevent hate-fueled attacks, school shootings and other forms of targeted violence.

Fugate’s appointment is the latest shock for an office that has been decimated since President Donald Trump returned to the White House and began remaking national security to give it a laser focus on immigration.

https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-dhs-thomas-fugate-cp3-terrorism-prevention

Good to see Donny is consistent….he hired an person with no experience in the field of terrorism prevention….in other words yet another damn amateur….

I feel so much safer now that we have a high schooler in charge of preventing terrorism (can he spell ‘terrorism’)

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

The Nanoscopic Mind Of Little Marco

From his nomination I thought that Rubio, aka Little Marco, was probably one of the worse people to work at the State Department…..w2hile in the Senate he did not demonstrate any inkling of diplomatic fervor rather he was a war hawk which as NO place as the head of what is supposedly the US top diplomatic agency.

Once in office he did whatever he was told to do like cutting staff, especially experienced diplomats, closing international outreach programs like US Aid, etc….he has even created a new office…..the Office of Remigration….and it smells like the usual BS from a Donny sycophant….

The State Department under Secretary Marco Rubio is undergoing a major reorg, and out of that dust has emerged an apparent new subdivision: the “Office of Remigration,” which an agency official says will fall under the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, per Axios. The new office, first reported on by the Handbasket, is one of three new offices in the bureau that will “shift focus towards supporting the administration’s efforts to return illegal aliens to their country of origin or legal status,” per a 136-page document sent to Congress on the restructured State Department.

The Office of Remigration is drawing attention not just for its ostensible purpose, but also for its name, as the term “remigration” is one that’s been wielded by the far right in Europe to mean booting nonwhite immigrants out of nations there, including by Germany’s AfD party. President Trump himself has used the term online, as has White House aide Stephen Miller, widely believed to be the mastermind behind much of the Trump administration’s immigration policy. “It’s outrageous,” Wendy Via, CEO and president of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, tells Wired. “There is no hiding from the fact that the ultimate goal of ‘remigration’ is purely about ethnic cleansing.”

The White House disagrees. “President Trump is keeping his promise to deport illegal aliens, and the American people are hugely supportive of his agenda,” a spokesperson tells Wired. Much more here from that outlet, which takes a closer look at the “remigration” blueprint disseminated overseas by Martin Sellner, an Austrian right-winger said to be “the man most responsible for promoting the idea of remigration across the globe.”

Little Marco is an amateur that does nothing of his own mind….instead he waits for direction from Donny and the Merry Band of Ignorants.

Marco Rubio is the uber-mensch of the Trump administration.  He is the secretary of state, the acting national security adviser, the acting director of (what’s left) of the Agency for International Development, and the acting director of the National Archives.  His only full-time job has never been performed by a secretary of state, canceling visas for international students and making sure that migrants are sent to horrific prisons in El Salvador or the South Sudan where a civil war is taking place.  He has even targeted a group of Venezuelan migrants who were given legal status by the Biden administration.  Nearly every Rubio decision on immigration matters has been illegal, and he presumably knows these decisions are illegal.  Nearly every decision has been blocked or challenged in federal courts.

After his confirmation in January, Rubio began his campaign to cancel visas for at least 1,500 international students.  The secretary of state has the power to cancel such visas, but Rubio is the first secretary of state to do so.  Rubio has no interest in defending the free speech rights of students; he maintains that anyone who associates with protestors should not attend a U.S. university.  This week, he ordered U.S. embassies and consulates to stop student visa applications, which will give the Trump administration time to issue even more restrictions.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/06/02/marco-rubio-the-secretary-of-statelessness/

These worthless amateurs are doing more damage to America’s long standing programs to keep the world a better place….and is doing NOTHING to Make America Great Again….

The sooner we flush these tools down a toilet the sooner the US can become a world leader again.

It is that simple.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”