Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/06/06/aoc-asks-the-fbi-why-they-give.html
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Joan of Arc?
Which is coincidental, because I was thinking I would recommend her for sainthood if I could.
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IIRC there was a big hoodoo during the early part of the Obama administration when an FBI DHS report concluded that right-wing extremism was a big and growing concern in this country and they were immediately and savagely attacked by the Republican legislature for unfairly targeting conservatives. Due to the intense political pressure they walked back the report and didn’t dedicate adequate resources to addressing the issue.
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I think, based on this brief clip, that he’s saying domestic terrorism can only be charged if there’s a link to a foreign terror organization, and that would be far less likely with a white supremacist (the US is the place foreign white supremacists get radicalized, not the other way around). That’s a pretty bright line in the sand, but AOC has the extremely relevant point that treating them differently as regards the investigation and charges is rife with abuse potential (and has been abused terribly in the past).
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Lady Mormont… Game of Thrones character. Try google reverse image search.
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AOC is definitely not afraid to ruffle feathers. The right wing attack machine is going absolutely ballistic on her, typically trying to cast her as being dumb for some reason. I’ve seen so many meme images where it is her face with a crusty old “pollack” joke superimposed over it. Kind of a strange angle to attack someone who is asking the smart questions IMHO.
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It’s hard to forget that Cliven Bundy pointed assault rifles at federal agents trying to collect back taxes and the only thing he ever got was an apology from a judge angry at the government for their treatment of such an upstanding good old boy.
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Tradition?
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I wonder what foreign links can be found on domestic terrorists’ devices.
I bet they never look overseas for information. /s
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Because Trump would lose a good deal of his voter base if they are incarcerated
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He is saying that, and it may even be true from a legal standpoint. What’s telling is that he didn’t make that definition clear initially, but only when Ocasio-Cortez cornered him.
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It seems that anyone using a swastika as a hate symbol is showing a connection to a foreign terror organization.
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Say what you will about her, but SOMEONE needed to get this rolling.
Why does the FBI need to establish a connection with a foreign country or group? I always understood their “turf” was purely domestic, as opposed to the CIA.
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I think she has point because there re a lot of white supremacist groups overseas, that share information and tactics online. I would be willing to bet if you looked at the white supremacist activities, you could find just as much of a link as was with the Pulse Night Club shooter. They are all homegrown violent actors, but they are also reaching out via the internet to others, that aren’t necessarily in our borders.
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The FBI functions as the U.S.'s counter-intelligence agency in addition to going after domestic criminals. In British terms, it functions as MI-5 to the CIA’s MI-6.
As others have noted, though, they have some major blind spots when it comes to domestic terrorists and what exactly defines a “foreign connection” (funding? recruiting? media influence?). And he shouldn’t have had to fumble for an answer.
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And, she followed up by asking if white supremacy was a global problem, which he acknowledged it was. Then she drew it back to his equivocation over the San Bernardino shooter fitting all of his criteria for being a hate crime, but instead receiving the charge of domestic terrorist simply because he was a Muslim. The implication being that, although white supremacy is every bit the global issue that Islamic fundametalist extremism is, the white supremacists get a pass. His logic is feeble at best.
ETA: @ethicalcannibal beat me to it. Great cannibals think alike.
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