Beware the Tea Party Terrorists

It's a measure of the intellectual bankruptcy of the Left that they so frequently resort to such laughable tactics as seeking to discredit their opposition by conflating in the public mind the Tea Party with all sorts of nefarious far-right organizations. The Daily Caller, for instance, tells us that:

Tea Party leaders say a series of reports by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) attempting to connect the Tea Party movement with domestic terrorists in the militia movement shows how desperate the left has become trying to stop the political juggernaut.

The group says individuals such as Glenn Beck, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann — all regulars at major Tea Party gatherings — have given widespread visibility for ideas espoused by the militia movement, or the “Patriot movement” as SPLC calls it.

According to SPLC, the Patriot movement — largely comprised of white supremacists — was animated in the 1990s by a shared view of the federal government as the enemy and a belief the Federal Emergency Management Agency secretly runs concentration camps.

“The ‘tea parties’ and similar groups that have sprung up in recent months cannot fairly be considered extremist groups, but they are shot through with rich veins of radical ideas, conspiracy theories and racism,” Mark Potok, director of the SPLC’s Intelligence Project, wrote in a piece titled “Rage On The Right: The Year In Hate And Extremism” from the group’s Spring 2010 edition of its Intelligence Report.

Yes, indeed. There's even photographic evidence of some of those hate-filled bigots and potential terrorists plotting violent revolution at one of their insidious rallies:

Beware.

Honoring Our Heroes

Today is a day to remember those who died on this date nine years ago as well as to honor the men and women who have been fighting ever since against the people who launched the 9/11 attacks and their allies. The Washington Post has an account of one such young man. It begins with this:

Under a bright Afghan moon, eight U.S. paratroopers trudged along a ridge in the Korengal Valley, unaware they were walking right into a trap. Less than 20 feet away, a band of Taliban fighters executed the ambush plan perfectly, enveloping the paratrooper squad in an explosion of bullets and grenades.

Salvatore Giunta, a 22-year-old Army specialist from Hiawatha, Iowa, was knocked flat by the gunfire; luckily, a well-aimed round failed to penetrate his armored chest plate. As the paratroopers tried to gather their senses and scramble for a shred of cover, Giunta reacted instinctively, running straight into the teeth of the ambush to aid three wounded soldiers, one by one, who had been separated from the others.

Two paratroopers died in the Oct. 25, 2007, attack, and most of the others suffered serious wounds. But the toll would have been far higher if not for the bravery of Giunta, according to members of his unit and Army officials.

Read the rest of the story of Giunta's bravery here.

The Post article goes on to tell us that President Obama will award Giunta the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest award for valor, and that will make him the first living recipient of the medal who has served in any war since Vietnam.

This is hard to believe. There've been so many stories of incredible bravery emerging from the wars of the last nine years that the military bureaucracy must be a very stingy bunch to find none of them deserving of its highest award. What Giunta did was extraordinary and merits the Medal of Honor, but so do the actions under fire of these and many other Americans who are risking and giving their lives every day to keep us safe from the barbarian hordes who want to kill us and our children and return the world to the 7th century.