Seventy-Four Million Terrorists

The Department of Homeland Security is targeting everyone who disagrees with Biden administration policies.

A committee of the U.S. House of Representatives is pondering whether to eliminate a program the Department of Homeland Security is using to monitor and encourage the harassment and impoverishment of people who disagree with positions and policies of the Biden administration.  NewsBusters reports:

Today, the House Appropriations Committee voted to zero out the funding for the Department of Homeland Security’s nefarious “Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention” (TVTP) grant program from the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Bill 2024.

The article cites a report by the Media Research Center (MRC, publisher of  NewsBusters) explaining the program:

Last month, MRC Free Speech America released a groundbreaking report providing definitive proof that the Department of Homeland Security had weaponized its $40 million taxpayer-funded anti-terrorism grant program in an effort to destroy conservatives, Christians, and the Republican Party. Instead of focusing on preventing actual violence and terrorism, the program is now being used to specifically target the entire spectrum of the political right and Christians through “media literacy and online critical thinking initiatives” and other so-called training seminars as part of a coordinated effort to make America into a one-party system.

“[A] a chart used by DHS and its grantee in a training program equates mainstream groups with militant neo-Nazis … ,” the MRC report states.

You may have already seen the chart, which vividly shows how the DHS program targets ordinary Americans by associating them with neo-Nazis and other far-fringe organizations:

For those of us who are unfamiliar with some of those logos, the MRC report identifies a few of them:

Among the organizations and movements displayed on the pyramid were the Republican Party (RNC), The Heritage Foundation, the American Conservative Union, Fox News, Breitbart News, the National Rifle Association (NRA), PragerUniversity, Tea Party Patriots, the MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement, the pro-police Blue Lives Matter movement and the Christian Broadcasting Network.

Also on the pyramid, as if somehow comparable to the aforementioned reputable organizations and movements, were rabidly hateful groups like the militant neo-Nazi gang The Base and pro-Nazi publication  The Daily Stormer.

The DHS knew exactly what it was getting when it made this grant, the report notes: “This chart was among others included in the original grant application submitted by the University of Dayton to DHS to successfully secure TVTP funding.”

The chart was much more than just a rhetorical device but was in fact a call for direct action against the Biden administration’s political opponents: “University of Cincinnati researcher Michael Loadenthal, a self-proclaimed member of a radical, anti-American Antifa group,” presented that graphic at a seminar by a DHS grantee under the program. Addressing the gathering, Loadenthal “explained how ‘antifascists’ could ‘pressure financial services’ like ‘GoFundMe, Patreon, PayPal, Venmo’ and others or ‘pressure retailers’ like Amazon and ‘service providers’ like ‘AirBnB’ and ‘Tinder’ in order to ‘kick people off,’” the MRC report notes.

At other seminars, Loadenthal recommended people “‘infiltrate’ social media platforms to ‘identify targets, create dossiers … surveil, interfere, misdirect [and] disrupt’ those the left opposes,” the report states. Other speakers at the DHS-funded seminars compared the Trump administration to the Khmer Rouge (which killed 1.7 million people in Cambodia in the 1970s) and said Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida might conduct a Holocaust via a volunteer force created to help the National Guard during public emergencies such as hurricanes.

Director of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas is under fire in Congress for alleged dereliction of duty in failing to secure the nation’s southern border, and Congressman Clay Higgins (R-LA) has introduced articles of impeachment against him. Heading a government agency that asserts a direct line between the opposition political party and terrorist groups is an equally impeachable offense.

That applies to Mayorkas’ boss as well.