Green Pistachio Ice Cream: Did Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas Leak to ...

Green Pistachio Ice Cream: Did Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas Leak to ...: Was Clarence Thomas the leak coming out of the historically silent Supreme Court?  According to Adam Liptik in the The New York Times : [T]...

Video:Sarah Evans n Don Henley- Leather and Lace

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Sarah Evans and Maroon 5
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Is Sarah Palin Just a Scapegoat for John McCain's Lost Campaign?

by Tony Lee

Winston Churchill said “history is written by the victors.” But too often in politics, where professional tacticians want to preserve their permanent paychecks by deflecting their mistakes onto everyone but themselves, losers often desperately attempt to re-write history.  And that is exactly what GOP establishment operatives, aided and abetted by members of the mainstream media who want to preserve access to them, are now doing to the history of the 2008 presidential campaign, as they attempt to blame Palin--and, by association, non-establishment grassroots conservatives--for their own professional malpractice during that campaign.
In nearly every recent story written about Romney’s vice presidential selection process, a GOP operative is quoted saying something in the vein of “Palin’s shadow hangs over the selection process.”
For example, Sara Fagen, George W. Bush’s political director, told the Associated Press, “There's one thing the people in the Republican establishment agree on: There was clearly not a thorough thought process or vetting that went into the selection of Sarah Palin. They didn't ask the fundamental questions or spend enough time with her...”.
Bill Schneider, in a Politico opinion piece, wrote:

The Palin choice hangs over Romney like a sword of doom... Palin was probably the worst vice presidential choice in modern times. What was McCain thinking? Probably that he needed to shore up his conservative base, which distrusted McCain ever since he challenged conservatives’ ascendancy over the GOP in 2000. Remember McCain’s attack that year on Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell as "agents of intolerance"?

The implication is that McCain lost the 2008 election because of Palin--that Palin was not qualified to be president and had no record of accomplishments. That narrative might help the résumés of the McCain handlers who mismanaged her, most notably Steve Schmidt and Nicolle Wallace. However, it ignores certain key facts, such as how Palin enabled McCain to temporarily take the lead in the 2008 campaign, Palin’s record of reform as Alaska’s governor, and Steve Schmidt’s mismanagement of the McCain campaign -- especially his failure and/or refusal to fully vet candidate Obama.
Do they really believe Palin, who took McCain’s campaign off of life support and put it temporarily in the lead, was a worse vice presidential choice than Thomas Eagleton, Dan Quayle, or John Edwards? As Mark Levin said on his radio show, the establishment is trying to re-write history again because, if not for Palin, McCain would have been a bigger loser.
So how did this impression turn into its current establishment consensus?
The Origins of A False Narrative: Leave No Establishment Consultant Behind 
Schmidt risked the farm--and the election -- on a gimmicky tactic that came up snake eyes.
POLITICO reported on a memo, "Shield Steve Schmidt From McCain Blame," put together in the waning days of the 2008 presidential campaign by associates of Schmidt to absolve him of campaign mismanagement. The memo lays out a strategy to shape conventional wisdom by targeting mainstream journalists and Republican talking heads and to blitz the media landscape with friendly talking points that would make it seem like even Ronald Reagan could not have won in 2008.
The obvious purpose was to absolve the professional operatives of all blame, allowing them to get hired again and sell their “snake oil” magic to the next politician. The quid pro quo was simple: we give you exclusive “gossip” and minutiae and you get exclusive reporting and access.
Of course Palin was vetted, and she was vetted by none other than thorough Washington, D.C. power-lawyer A.B. Culvahouse. In an interview Culvahouse gave to The Washingtonian magazine, he described his impressions of Palin when he was vetting her: "She gave a very thoughtful answer to all those questions. People who are more experienced, more savvy--maybe some of them gave less savvy answers...".
But nobody mentions this inconvenient fact, and that is why it is important to look more closely at the “Schmidt Memo,” as it is important for two reasons.
First, it reveals how conventional wisdom is often invented for personal gain in the political world, and the same tactics are usually employed to try to destroy conservatives. Second, the tactics described in the memo are the exact same ones used by the Democrat-Media complex to tear down conservatives. Palin and her supporters have had to relentlessly and ruthlessly combat this false narrative, which has become conventional wisdom among the political and chattering class. If Team Schmidt employed these tactics to try to preserve Schmidt’s reputation, one can only expect they employed similar tactics to smear Palin.
On June 3, 2008, when the general election campaign essentially began, then-Senator Obama would speak in Minnesota while McCain would speak in Louisiana. On that day, Obama won enough delegates to officially become the Democratic nominee, after a long slog of a primary against Hillary Clinton, and he could finally pivot toward the general election.
McCain, on the other hand, had essentially wrapped up the Republican nomination after he won the Florida primary four months earlier. But during those ensuing four months, McCain could not come up with a coherent message against Obama and the Democrats, or for himself.
On that night of June 3, 2008, the contrast between the two candidates and, more importantly, the campaign operations could not have been more different. Obama spoke in front of 25,000 people at the Xcel Center in Minnesota, presenting the country with his campaign's opening argument. McCain, on the other hand, spoke in front of a sickly green background which was widely panned. His speech was devoid of any coherent message, theme, or strategy that might inspire anyone outside of his circle of political mercenaries, who were clearly in over their heads.
This was a harbinger of more incompetence and mismanagement to follow.
The McCain campaign still could not find a coherent raison d'être for his candidacy in the following months. The campaign, led by Steve Schmidt and Nicolle Wallace, inexplicably thought that Republicans would accept Joe Lieberman as a potential vice president and did not nix this idea upon hearing it. In fact, they actually floated this harebrained notion to the press.

Then, when they got lucky and picked Sarah Palin, whose convention speech (which more people watched than Obama's) was responsible for the McCain campaign’s brief lead over Obama, they proceeded to mismanage Palin on the campaign trail. Because Palin was a last-minute selection, they should have allowed her to comment on all the issues of the day as if she were the candidate. Then they could market the ticket as a true team of mavericks whose opinions on various issues might be different, but who would be united by their passion for reforming Washington. Instead, Schmidt and Wallace tried to program Palin as an establishment, Washington D.C. creature, which she never was and did not have the DNA ever to become.
But the greatest act of malpractice--perhaps in the history of any presidential campaign--was when Schmidt, Wallace, and McCain's mercenaries decided to go "all in"  on September 24, 2008 when the financial crisis hit and the nation was deciding between the inexperienced first-term senator and McCain. That moment presented voters with an opportunity to see who could best handle such an unexpected crisis.
McCain suspended his campaign, went to Washington, D.C. without having read a three-page paper which outlined the terms of TARP, and was outclassed by Obama to the point where the average voter began to trust the inexperienced Chicago politician as someone who could be a competent manager of the nation's economy. Meanwhile, the nation saw McCain's disastrous performance and viewed him as erratic and borderline senile. Of course, McCain is competent and not senile, but his campaign mercenaries ignominiously made him look like he was, just like they would make Palin seem the caricature she was not.
It was after this moment of ineptitude that the election was, for all intents and purposes, over. And it was then that the paid mercenaries had to hatch a plan to save their faces and reputations and cover up their incompetence so that they would not be laughed at and run out of town.
As POLITICO described then:

"These people are going to try and shred her after the campaign to divert blame from themselves," a McCain insider said, referring to McCain's chief strategist, Steve Schmidt, and to Nicolle Wallace, a former Bush aide who has taken a lead role in Palin's campaign. Palin's partisans blame Wallace, in particular, for Palin's avoiding of the media for days and then giving a high-stakes interview to CBS News' Katie Couric, the sometimes painful content of which the campaign allowed to be parceled out over a week... A number of Gov. Palin's staff have not had her best interests at heart, and they have not had the campaign's best interests at heart," the McCain insider fumed, noting that Wallace left an executive job at CBS to join the campaign.

Why? Because their financial livelihoods and reputations were at stake:

Beyond the obvious reputation-burnishing--much of it by professional operatives whose financial livelihoods depend on ensuring that they are not blamed for a bad campaign--there was a more substantive dimension. Barring a big McCain comeback, and a turnabout in numerous congressional races where the party was in trouble, the GOP was on the brink of a soul-searching debate about what to do to reclaim power. Much of that debate would hinge on appraisals of what McCain could have done differently.

And the truth would have disqualified these mercenaries from any future employment or consulting contracts:

A House Republican leadership aide in an e-mail was no more complimentary, “The staff has been remarkably undisciplined, too eager to point fingers, unable to craft any coherent long-term strategy. The handling of Palin… has been nothing short of political malpractice."

This is where the Schmidt memos come into play.
The Political-Media Industrial Complex: Cronyism Among The Permanent Political-Media Class
The author of the memo, McCain operative Brian Jones, who also worked in the same political consulting company that then-employed Schmidt, Mercury Public Affairs, wrote that the following talking points should be strategically turned into conventional wisdom by targeting opinion shapers in Washington. Jones wrote that Schmidt allies “should in the course of natural conversations with friendly reporters begin to provide positive messaging -- off the record.” On Oct. 29, 2008, three days after the original memo was written, a second memo was sent that fleshed out the plan in even more detail, assigning specific Mercury Public Affairs employees specific members of the media to target and spin like fools.
When contacted by Politico, Schmidt said he knew nothing about the pre-election plan or the memo. He said he had “no idea that this existed until today.” Here are some of the talking points in the memo that Schmidt said he had not heard of until he was contacted by Politico:
• Despite an extremely challenging electoral environment, by mid-September John McCain was ahead of Barack Obama in the majority of national public opinion polls and was also ahead in the race for 270 votes in the Electoral College based on polls in key battleground states.
• John McCain was ahead despite being written off by the "media intelligentsia" in the summer of 2007, then again in late spring, 2008 and after the Democrat convention.
• With the collapse of the global financial markets in mid-September, an already challenging electoral environment turned absolutely toxic for anyone with an R behind their name. In fact, nearly 95% of the country felt America was headed in the wrong direction. Add to this mix an incumbent Republican president whose approval ratings were hovering in the mid 20s and you’ve got a campaign running into a category 5 headwind.
But upon closer examination, it seems beyond belief that Schmidt did not know of these memos when one examines his statements during the time the memos were being circulated.
On November 4, 2008, in a gaggle with mainstream media reporters, as reported by TIME, Schmidt said the following:

We did our absolute best in this campaign in really difficult circumstances. We had some tough cards to play all the way through, and we hung in there all the way. You look back in the middle of September, [the] economic collapse of the country, a number of different things. We did the best we can in historically difficult circumstances from a political climate. It is entirely doubtful that anyone will have to run in a worse political climate than the one John McCain had to run in this year... The global economic collapse in the middle of September occurred at a time when we were ahead in the race, dropping the right-track number to roughly 5, 6, 7 percent, which are numbers that I don’t think will ever be seen again in any of our lifetimes. It was a bad economic environment throughout the election, where people were angry at the incumbent party. At the end of the day, I don’t think there is another Republican that the party could have nominated that could have made this a competitive race the way that John McCain did. It’s one thing we know for sure is that at a Congressional level the Senate Democratic majorities and the House Democratic majorities will expand. The party has been very unpopular. The president’s approval numbers were not helpful in the race. But the party as a whole is unpopular with the American people, and that was a big albatross.

Three days later, on November 7, 2008, in an e-mail to Ana Marie Cox, a liberal journalist who then wrote for The Daily Beast, Schmidt wrote nearly the exact same talking points that blamed everyone but himself for McCain’s disastrous performance, making it obvious that Schmidt was briefed and on message. His contention that he had no knowledge of the "absolve Schmidt" memos seems patently absurd. The memo also suggested “additional actions” to take, including, “Monitor coverage (pre and post election) for Schmidt mentions;” “keep tabs on all post election panels and forums, ensuring we have individuals aligned with MPA participating on them and that ‘friendly’ speakers have our message points;” and “post-election, book Steve on a TV program that will allow him to broadly discuss the election while also highlighting his personal side (e.g. - Larry King).”
According to the memo, mainstream journalists and Republican talking heads were to be specifically targeted. As can be seen in the list below, the memo had representatives from every mainstream and Republican organization such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, POLITICO, TIME, The Atlantic Monthly, ABC, NBC, and FOX News:

Adam Nagourney, Dan Balz, Chris Cillizza, John Fund, Maeve Reston, Mike Allen, Jonathan Martin, Jill Zuckman, Mark Halperin, Paul Bedard, Steve Dinan, Charlie Hurt, Marc Ambinder, Charlie Cook, Stu Rothenberg, Rich Lowry, Byron York, George Stephanopolis (sic), Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, Carl Cameron, Brit Hume, Mark Preston, David Brody

Many on this list, such as Cillizza, Allen, Martin, Halperin, Stephanopoulis, Todd, Murray, and Cameron have expressed a disdain verging on mockery toward Palin. Halperin, of course, also allowed Schmidt to use and abuse him as a mouthpiece through which he would endlessly harass Palin (Halperin co-wrote Game Change, which was also turned into a TV movie). One can only wonder how much of their biases were formed when they were targeted by Schmidt's allies after the campaign.
The Republicans who often go on television who were specifically named in the memo are:

Kevin Madden, Alex Castellanos, Ron Bonjean, Barbara Comstock, Jim Dyke, Tim Griffin, John Feehrery (sic), Rich Galen, Ben Ginsburg, Amy Holmes, Leslie Sanchez, Andrea Tantaros, and Ken Mehlman

Many on this list have specifically taken jabs at Palin and conservatives generally and, as you can see on the list of attendees at the “Game Change” premiere in Washington, D.C., feel more at home among the members of the mainstream media than they do among conservatives. Unlike Palin supporters, who handed out Playbills that debunked much of “Game Change,” these beltway Republicans at the “Game Change” premiere probably did not mention the fact that much of the movie was false, because they have to scratch the backs of beltway creatures like Halperin and Heilemann so they can get theirs scratched by them in the future.
The “Schmidt Memo” also suggested that, at conferences which would discuss the 2008 election, where the types of Republicans and the mainstream media elite who go to "Game Change" premieres congregate, Team Schmidt would ensure their spin would be heard and be a permanent part of post-election bloodstream and narrative.
In April of 2009, Schmidt and Obama Campaign Manager David Plouffe participated in a post-election forum at the University of Delaware, where Schmidt again repeated the talking points from the memo that he had supposedly not seen and admitted that he has "occasionally voted for a few Democratic Party candidates."
In the fall of 2009, Schmidt was a prominent participant at a conference in Washington, D.C., “The First Draft of History.” The conference was organized by The Atlantic and The Aspen Ideas Forum, which regularly attracts opinion makers in the mainstream media and the editors and producers who then amplify what becomes conventional wisdom. Schmidt was interviewed at the forum by CNN's John King and said that Palin would be "catastrophic" to the Republican Party should she be the Republican nominee in 2012:

I think that she has talents, but my honest view is that she would not be a winning candidate for the Republican Party in 2012, and in fact, were she to be the nominee, we would have a catastrophic election result.

Like clockwork, King, who then was the host of the influential Sunday show “State of the Union,” led a panel discussion about Schmidt’s remarks the Sunday after the conference on his show. Schmidt also discussed Going Rogue, which had not been published yet. The mainstream media did not make a fuss about him criticizing a book he had not read in the way they did about Team Palin criticizing “Game Change” before seeing it (Team Palin eventually got a leaked version of "Game Change," screened it, and stood by their original criticisms of the movie). Why is it significant that King interviewed Schmidt? In the memo, Schmidt's allies wanted to ensure that those who were friendly to Schmidt were on panels with him. And who could be friendlier than someone to whom Schmidt and Wallace leaked false information about Palin being a diva that started the 2008 blame game?
Gossip that Palin was a "diva" was first spread by King and his then-wife, CNN's Dana Bash, in 2008. In 2009, it was revealed that those involved in the McCain campaign suspected that Nicolle Wallace's husband, Mark, leaked the gossip to his friends King and/or Bash. None other than Bill Kristol wrote in an e-mail:

My very educated guess is mark wallace defnding [sic] his wife
Knows king well, gives her deniability, spent several weeks through debate with her, not there now

So King, who was one of the first to help Team Schmidt execute the "Blame Anyone But Schmidt" strategy, "objectively" moderated a discussion about election 2008, and he then helped amplify the conventional wisdom about Palin and the 2008 election through the platforms that he had at CNN.
Months later, at the start of 2010, CBS began hyping Game Change the novel with a "60 Minutes" feature. CBS interviewed Schmidt, but also interviewed Halperin and Heilemann. Halperin spoke about, of all things, Palin's mental state, while Heilemann spoke authoritatively about Palin's now-debunked lack of foreign policy experience. But CBS never asked Messrs. Halperin and Heilemann how they could speak so authoritatively, as if they were in the room with Palin during these so-called events.
In reality, Halperin and Heilemann were simply acting as mouthpieces for Schmidt and Wallace, but CBS let the "reporters" repeat the seediest pieces of gossip about Palin to lend them more credibility. If Schmidt had gone on camera and said what he most likely told Halperin and Heilemann, it would blow his cover as the Palin trasher-in-chief and make him sound like an incompetent mercenary hell-bent on ascribing blame to anyone but himself for the campaign.
But because the mainstream media hated Palin and wanted to take her down from the beginning, they were more than happy to collude with Schmidt to cement a conventional wisdom about Palin that they thought would permanently damage her.
And now, this conventional wisdom is parroted mindlessly by the mainstream media, as seen in this CNN piece in which Gloria Borger, a prominent on-air commentator, says things like, “This time around, it's clear what one rule will be: The vice presidential nominee needs to be qualified to be president.”
Borger also repeats the manufactured conventional wisdom that Palin was not ready to be president when she says, “Sure, Romney will want a running mate who balances his weaknesses with conservatives and maybe can lend a hand in a key state or two. But post-Palin, the vice presidential nominee needs to be one thing more than anything else: competent, prepared and ready to lead.”
Of course, one of Borger’s main sources in all of her pieces is none other than Schmidt.
And this fabricated narrative is taken as fact, as seen in this opinion piece by Karl Rove in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, in which he falsely wrote that McCain was leading Obama in the polls at the time he chose Palin. But actually, according to the “RealClearPolitics” average of polls on the day McCain chose Palin, McCain was losing to Obama nationally, 47.7 percent to 43.8. It was Palin’s selection and her subsequent speech at the Republican National Convention that put McCain’s campaign temporarily ahead of Obama’s.
What The Questions Not Asked By the Legacy Media Reveal About Them
And just like that, the conventional wisdom that Palin was a crazy hick and Obama's election was inevitable went into motion, even though it has all been proven to be a myth. And it was formed without these esteemed opinion makers asking any of these relevant questions, which any journalist who knows and follows politics would think to ask:
1. If McCain had no chance of winning the election, then what were his paid professionals paid so handsomely to do? Are these paid professionals not hired to make candidates better and help them with messaging and strategy?
2. If no Republican could have won in 2008, then why was the McCain campaign briefly ahead after Palin's convention speech?
3. If the financial crisis ended any chance McCain had of winning the election, wasn't his campaign's decision to go "all in" and suspend his campaign the reason that ended McCain's chance at becoming president? And wasn't Team Schmidt the architect of the "all-in" strategy?
Lastly, this episode also reveals some more truths about the Beltway media.
1. The mainstream media lazily let itself get played and spun. This should trouble many, especially those who were rightfully outraged that Obama did not get vetted in 2008.
2. If the mainstream media is not stupid, then it deliberately plays along with false narratives, knowing they are being spun, because reporters need scoops and access in the future from the permanent class of political operatives.
3. The Mainstream media and liberals see Palin as a threat and are more than glad to smear her with the help of useful idiots who call themselves Republicans--like Schmidt.
4. Journalists, the saying goes, are supposed to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. But in today's age, journalists are more likely to comfort their comfortable friends in the paid professional community of political operatives and afflict the powerless who neither have the resources nor the platforms to defend themselves. And, more often than not, the afflicted are conservatives.
5. Too often, those who have conventional wisdom manufactured about them cannot fight back. And that is why McCain's paid professionals and the mainstream media thought they could target Palin and absolve Schmidt of any blame. Palin would go back to the hinterland and would not be heard from again, they thought. And conservatives, the conventional thinking went, would lose even more power and influence after the 2008 elections, even in a country in which a plurality has repeatedly identified themselves as conservative. But the mainstream media and those Republicans who have never understood conservatives underestimated Palin's appeal, the power of the forthcoming Tea Party movement, and the fierceness with which her supporters would defend her when they figured out this charade.
As Charles Hurt of the Washington Times wrote, “what people like Mr. Schmidt don’t understand is that the reason so many Americans fell in love with Sarah Palin is not because they hate Democrats. It’s because they hate Republicans. Specifically, Republicans like Steve Schmidt.”
Andrew Breitbart said that if Obama were to be properly vetted, the media that enabled and covered up for Obama had to be vetted as well. When Republicans and the mainstream media trash conservatives or praise liberals like Obama and seem to be reading from the same talking points, these Schmidt memos provide more evidence that they--knowingly or unknowingly--are doing just that.
Winston Churchill also said that “history will be kind to me for I intend to write it.” This is exactly what Schmidt--and his cronies in the mainstream media and GOP establishment--intend to do. Andrew Breitbart would have fiercely combated this pro-establishment whitewashing of history. Conservatives like Mark Levin are fighting it. And more conservatives should do so as well, if for no other reason than to ensure this does not happen to another conservative who dares to take on the establishment and the permanent political class.

Rupert Murdoch Deemed Unfit to Run Newsorp!

KPFK 'BradCast': Rupert Murdoch Found 'Not a Fit Person' to Run NewsCorp, with Eric Boehlert

Yesterday, a committee in the UK Parliament investigating the NewsCorp phone hacking and bribery scandal concluded that Rupert Murdoch was "not a fit person" to run a major international corporation.
On today's BradCast on KPFK/Pacifica Radio, Eric Boehlert of Media Matters joined me to discuss that remarkable news, his sobering column yesterday on "Murdoch's Nixonian Demise", what it all means for NewsCorp properties here in the U.S. (like Fox "News", the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal) and how the story is being covered by the media in this country both on the Right and non-Right.
As usual, we're also joined by Desi Doyen for some Green News Report and a few listener phone calls round out the hour.

Download MP3 or listen online below [appx 58 mins]...

Reminder: I don't post ALL of my KPFK shows here, but you can subscribe to the RSS feed to get 'em all, or stop by the KPFK BradCast archives anytime.

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Article Categories: Fox 'News', Mainstream Corporate Media, Great Britain, Mainstream Media Failure, Accountability, New York Post, Media Reform, Wall Street Journal, News Corp.

Green Pistachio Ice Cream: The Demise of Democracy in Michigan

Green Pistachio Ice Cream: The Demise of Democracy in Michigan: http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/michigan-republicans-illegally-pass

The Demise of Democracy in Michigan

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/michigan-republicans-illegally-pass

Green Pistachio Ice Cream: White Supremacist Tom Metzger Possibly Involved Ar...

Green Pistachio Ice Cream: White Supremacist Tom Metzger Possibly Involved Ar...: Posted in Extremist Crime , White Supremacist by Bill Morlin on April 3, 2012   Print This Post Tom Metzger — a wily, iconic ra...

White Supremacist Tom Metzger Possibly Involved Arizona Bombing

Posted in Extremist Crime, White Supremacist by Bill Morlin on April 3, 2012

 Print This Post

Tom Metzger — a wily, iconic racist ideologue who has for years espoused “lone-wolf” terrorism — could soon find himself facing criminal charges filed by the federal government he’s excoriated for decades.
Federal investigators, fresh off a related mail-bombing conviction in Arizona, may be pressing for what could develop into a major Justice Department criminal case against “Terrible Tommy” Metzger, as he likes to call himself. Court records filed in three states show the investigators strongly suspect Metzger provided the Arizona bomber with explosive-making instructions, knowing they would be used in the commission of a crime of violence.
At 74, Metzger, who now lives in Warsaw, Ind., has “celebrity status” as the founder of White Aryan Resistance (WAR), court documents say, and is a dean of white supremacists. He’s the last vestige of a generation of revolutionary racist leaders in the United States that included the late Richard G. Butler of Aryan Nations and the late Robert Miles, a one-time Michigan Klan leader and convicted bomber. While those two and many other racist leaders were charged in various criminal cases over the past three decades, Metzger has managed to avoid any serious criminal charges in his 40-plus years of activism.

That may be about to change.
Court documents filed in Arizona, Illinois and Indiana and obtained by Hatewatch suggest that federal investigators with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives may now be building a case against Metzger that could be filed in any of several federal jurisdictions.
Metzger is accused in the court papers of providing bomb-making instructions to long-time WAR associates Dennis and Daniel Mahon in a plot to send a mail bomb to the black man who was then the diversity officer for the city of Scottsdale, Ariz. Don Logan’s hands were maimed, and two colleagues were less seriously injured, when he opened a package containing a pipe bomb on Feb. 26, 2004, at his city office.
The Mahon twins — itinerant aircraft mechanics and well-known racist activists who have lived in Oklahoma, Arizona and Illinois — were indicted in 2009, five years after the attack on Logan. At the same time, agents raided Metzger’s Warsaw, Ind., home and seized computers and other items. Metzger was not arrested, and the results of the raid have not been disclosed. However, Metzger was recently described in open court as an “unindicted co-conspirator.”
This Feb. 24, Daniel Mahon, 61, was acquitted of a single conspiracy count by a jury. But his identical twin brother, Dennis, was convicted of three felonies, including conspiracy, distribution of information about explosives, and using explosives to attack a building. That last conviction is apparently the “crime of violence” that officials need to pursue charges against Metzger.
Tom Atteberry, special agent in charge of the ATF’s Phoenix field division, encompassing the states of Arizona and New Mexico, said he couldn’t discuss the possibility of bringing such a charge. “But what I can tell you is, even though this [Mahon] trial is over, there are continuing leads being pursued throughout the United States,” Atteberry told Hatewatch. “ATF is fully committed to pursuing leads with vigor with our state and local partners.”
Reached at his Indiana home, Metzger denied that he had ever built a bomb, instructed anyone on how to build a bomb, or knew of Dennis Mahon’s involvement in the Logan attack. “I don’t know what they would build a case on,” he said. “I’ve been the target of various investigations going back to the 1970s. Unless they come with an arrest warrant, I don’t pay attention to what the feds are doing.”
Metzger and Lone Wolves
Tom Metzger’s racist activities go back to the 1970s, when he joined David Duke’s Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, quickly rising to California state leader. He later split with Duke, who he accused of womanizing and other transgressions, and formed his own group to seek political office. After a failed run for Congress, he founded what would eventually be called the White Aryan Resistance.
WAR published a grotesquely racist tabloid, complete with animalistic portrayals of black people and thick with slurs and calls for violence. At the same time, however, Metzger’s ideology was quite different than most on the racist right. He described himself as an anti-corporate leftist, a strong supporter of unions (for white people) and the working class. He applauded black racists, who he saw as standing up for their own people just as he was standing up for whites.
Metzger also pioneered the idea of using racist skinheads as the “shock troops” of the movement. Reaching out to such skins, he sent a trainer to Portland, Ore., in 1988 to encourage skinhead street violence against black people. Three weeks later, three skinheads murdered an Ethiopian student, resulting in criminal convictions but also a civil suit from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). In the end, a jury returned a $12.5 million verdict against Metzger and WAR. Metzger, who wrote after the murders that the killers had done their “civic duty,” was forced to make monthly payments to the student’s estate for the next 20 years.
Since that trial, Metzger has evolved into an ideologue and a cheerleader, rather than an activist leading street actions or building a group. He has spent much of that time encouraging “lone wolves” to attack the government and minorities and selling publications detailing weapons, bombs and paramilitary tactics.
Indeed, as one court document in the Mahon case points out, Metzger’s website reflects these efforts. “There are those like myself who have been out in the open for years with no real possibility of becoming deep cover Lone Wolves,” he is quoted as saying. “Our job is primarily one of creating white propaganda, of being public information sources and for communicating to those in deep cover.”
It’s that very kind of relationship that may be at issue now.
Curiouser and Curiouser
Five months before the 2004 Scottsdale bombing, a man identifying himself as “Dennis Mahon of the White Aryan Resistance” called the city’s diversity office and left a threatening message. The caller’s number was later confirmed to be that of Dennis Mahon, and an agent who met Mahon repeatedly during the subsequent investigation recognized the voice on the call as Mahon’s, court records say.
In early February 2004, Metzger and Dennis Mahon appeared together at Aryanfest 2004, a white power concert in Fountain Hills, Ariz., just three miles from Scottsdale. (The event was one of the last attended by Richard Butler, the Aryan Nations founder from Idaho who died that fall, on Sept. 8.)
Aryanfest attracted some fairly prominent press attention in the Phoenix area. Between Feb. 17 and Feb. 19, the Phoenix New Times alternative newspaper and two other small local papers published a major New Times article entitled “Barbecue Nations” that mocked the participants, with a headline referring to “shaved-headed men hugging each other like they were at a gay pride picnic” and an unnamed law enforcement official describing Dennis Mahon as a “drunken fool.”
The racists couldn’t resist responding. Starting on Feb. 19 and continuing for the next two days, Mahon and Metzger separately contacted one of the article’s authors by phone and E-mail. “Amusing article,” Metzger wrote in one E-mail, court records in the Mahon case say. “If only you knew. But you will. lol TM.”
On Feb. 21 — the same day that the reporter received a final phone call and a voicemail from Dennis Mahon — a pipe bomb, disguised in a cardboard box and addressed to Don Logan, was left in the Scottsdale library. It was routed through the city’s internal mail system to the diversity office, where it arrived on Feb. 26. Logan opened it that day. The blast injured Logan, a secretary and another worker.
Records in the case against the Mahons say that ATF Special Agent Tristan Moreland located phone records showing a “series of calls between Mahon and Metzger just before and after the attempted contacts” with New Times.
Metzger’s E-mail strongly suggests that he knew the bombing was about to occur, the ATF agent said in a court affidavit. Moreland said it was his “belief that Metzger foreshadowed the Logan bombing to this reporter in the email.”
Metzger absolutely denied that. “I had no idea the Mahons were involved in something like this,” he told Hatewatch. “If I had known, I would have told them to stay the hell away from anything like that. If I’d known Dennis was involved in something like this, I would taken him outside and broken his legs.”
In the immediate aftermath of the 2004 bombing, investigators focused in on the Mahon brothers. The ATF recruited a female informant, a former stripper who in early 2005 moved with an undercover ATF agent into a trailer park in Catossa, Okla., where the Mahons were then living. She flirted with the Mahons, at one point sending them two provocative pictures of herself, and sympathized with their views. Within days, they began to talk to her about various bombings.
In 2006, Metzger left Fallbrook, Calif., for Warsaw, Ind., where he moved into his mother’s house after her death. Even then, three years before the Mahons’ arrests, the investigation already was beginning to point to Metzger.
‘I Won’t Betray You’
In January 2008, a smitten Dennis Mahon allegedly told the female informant that he and his brother “have been bombing for the movement since the early 1980s and that Tom METZGER told them, ‘If they (The MAHON’s) want to go ahead and bomb a Synagogue or a Mexican restaurant go ahead, but that he (METZGER) doesn’t want to know about it,’” according to an ATF affidavit filed in court.
“MAHON said that METZGER said that he will be the lightning bolt for it and take the heat, but that he just doesn’t want to know about it. MAHON appeared to be telling the [informant] that he and his brother Daniel committed bombings on METZGER’s and the movement’s behalf, but that METZGER insulates himself by not having the specific knowledge of when and where.”
Meanwhile, a federal judge authorized a wiretap of Metzger’s telephone that was active from January until June 2008, court documents say. Eventually, investigators would surveil Metzger personally, monitor his website, and place a “mail cover” on his post office box. At one point, they even installed a camera that took pictures of Metzger as he picked up WAR mail at his post office box, court documents show.
On May 22, 2008, after finding partial DNA profiles on some of the Scottsdale bomb components, ATF agents with a court warrant swabbed the mouths of the Mahon brothers to see if they could obtain a match. Ultimately, they couldn’t make the match, but their visit raised alarms. Two days later, testimony at the later Mahon trial would reveal, Dennis Mahon called his mentor, Metzger.
“I won’t betray you, Tom,” Mahon said over the tapped phone.
“I didn’t think you would,” Metzger replied.
In his comments to Hatewatch, Metzger suggested that far from being in on the attack, he hardly even knew the case. “Who’s this Logan anyway?” he said of the diversity officer who was maimed. “A nobody that I’ve never heard about.”
After obtaining the swabs, investigators finally presented their evidence to a Phoenix grand jury. In June 2009, the Mahon brothers were indicted in a conspiracy, the indictment said, to “promote racial discord” and “teach the tactics of terrorism with the intent that others would commit violent acts on behalf of WAR.”
Later that month, ATF agents raided the Mahon family residence in Davis Junction, Ill., about 10 miles south of Rockford, searching for bomb-making materials, instruction manuals and any related computer files. In an affidavit backing the search, the ATF described the Mahons as “closely associated” with Metzger and WAR for 20 years and noted that WAR promoted lone-wolf attacks.
At the same time, they searched Metzger’s Indiana home. According to the affidavit supporting that search, agents were looking for information on how to manufacture bombs, evidence of manufacturing bombs, computers, and any documents relating to the 2004 attack on Don Logan. It said that investigators had developed “evidence suggesting that that MAHON brothers follow the advice and direction of TOM METZGER” when it comes to racist activities.
Making the Case
As interest in Metzger’s possible role heated up, undercover ATF agents also ordered a number of books from Metzger’s site — materials with names like Terrible Tom’s Guide: White Urban Survival, Combatives: Who, What, Why and When of Unconventional Warfare, and Total Resistance: Resisting the Iron Heel.
Because ATF experts were able to recover enough forensic evidence from the 2004 mail bomb, including triggering components, they were able to accurately surmise what types of plans were used to build the device. Those plans looked similar to those described in books sold by Metzger from his website.
The affidavit also said Metzger “regularly discusses acts of violence in the furtherance of his white supremacist goals” on his Internet radio show. It added: “Some of these acts included the use of small explosive devices to disrupt civil rights marches and the murder of judges and politicians. Although at times during these shows Metzger tells his listeners not to act violently, he and his guests often contradict themselves by telling the followers the opposite. They say things like, ‘If there was ever a time for a white barbarian, it is now,’ and that the commission of violence and murder is the only way things are going to change in this country.”
The affidavit also spelled out the ATF’s theory of Metzger’s possible criminal culpability, saying the search was for evidence of “teaching or distributing material related to an explosive device with intent the teaching or material will be used to commit a Federal crime of violence and/or knowing that the person receiving such teaching or material intends to use [it in] … a Federal crime of violence.”
In January 2009, an undercover ATF agent wrote Metzger a letter saying he could “use a little instruction on the finer points of warfare.” He also said that he was “thinking about waiting until its [sic] 120 [degrees] this summer and blowing the power grid or something like that.” He included $100. Within two weeks, Metzger had filled the request for three books. He made no comment about his customer’s plans.
After the June 2009 raid and the arrests of the Mahons, things were quiet until the twins were finally put on trial early this year. Now, with the conviction of Dennis Mahon in a crime of violence, officials may be moving ahead again.
It’s clear what federal law enforcement agents believe is really going on. In one affidavit, ATF agent Moreland says that he “believes Metzger is actively recruiting and training other persons to commit crimes on behalf of the white supremacist and anti-government movements.” That’s plain enough. What remains to be seen is if officials can make a case they feel confident bringing to a grand jury.

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