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Justin Elliott

AZ Assault Rifle-Wielding Man And Gun-Toter In NH Belong To Same Right-Wing Group

Justin Elliott | August 21, 2009, 5:45PM

Chris Broughton, the man who brought an assault rifle to an Obama event in Arizona earlier this week, and William Kostric, who protested outside a presidential forum in New Hampshire armed with a handgun last week, are both listed as "team members" of the Arizona chapter of the We The People organization.

The group is committed to "restoring Freedom and Constitutional Order through the exercise of popular sovereignty by all possible non-violent means."

Kostric, whose residence on the chapter page is listed as Scottsdale, AZ, has reportedly moved to New Hampshire because he thought Arizona's gun laws were becoming too strict.

Broughton, whose full name was reported today by the Arizona Republic, told the newspaper he "wasn't seeking a personal spotlight by arming himself and strolling through crowds of Obama supporters."

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Topics: Barack Obama, Chris Broughton

Tom DeLay

Reporters Who Know DeLay Best: Quadriplegic Tale Is New To Us

Justin Elliott | August 20, 2009, 6:46PM

Two journalists who've covered Tom DeLay extensively over the years tell TPMmuckraker they've never heard of his story about protesters at a health care town hall in the 80s who "brought in quadriplegics on gurneys and dumped them on the floor in front of my podium."

"Jan Reid and I (and a researcher) spent a full year, reading clips and running down sources. Nowhere did I see any mention of quadriplegics brought in on gurneys," Lou Dubose, co-author of The Hammer: God, Money, and the Rise of the Republican Congress, tells TPMmuckraker in an e-mail. "We would have used if we had it."

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Topics: Tom DeLay

Tom DeLay

Does DeLay's Angry Quadriplegic Town Hall Protesters Tale Add Up?

Justin Elliott | August 20, 2009, 4:25PM

Last night on Hardball, Chris Matthews asked an exuberant Tom DeLay about the Tea Party/Birther agitation bubbling up around the country.

DeLay gave this response, which piqued our interest:

Chris, you shouldn't be surprised about this. This has been going on forever. When I did my town hall meetings, I'll never forget one back in the '80s -- on health care, by the way. They brought in quadriplegics on gurneys and dumped them on the floor in front of my podium. I mean, this is not new. What's new is, the people that came into disrupt my town meetings, we just let them go on because it usually turned off the people that were there. What's happening here is the American people are on their side.

Wild stuff. Sounds like the town hall protest of the decade -- but did it actually happen?

Here at TPMmuckraker, we scoured news archives for such an incident -- and called around, including to DeLay's spokeswoman, who has not responded to questions about the episode.

Then we got a look at a May 1996 article from the Houston Chronicle about a series of protests by the disabilities advocacy group ADAPT, brought to our attention by Democratic consultant Peter Lindstrom.

It begins like this:

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Topics: Tom DeLay

Viper Militia

Heavily-Armed '90s Militia, Linked To Anti-Obama Activist, Resisted 'New World Order'

Justin Elliott | August 19, 2009, 2:35PM

Let's delve a little bit deeper into the black helicopter-infested world of the Viper Militia -- the 90's era group whose members ended up in federal prison and whose most prominent friend and defender, Ernest Hancock, staged the show of arms-bearing at an Obama event Monday.

A portrait of a feckless group of paranoid, right-wing, minimum wage-earning weapons enthusiasts -- 10 men and two women -- emerges from press accounts at the time.

Take Dean Pleasant, the Viper member whom Hancock called his good friend in an interview with TPMmuckraker yesterday. Pleasant couldn't hold onto jobs at Kathy's Donut Farm (too "lackadaisical," even though he always brought his Glock to work) or a part-time gig at military supply store Allied Surplus (where he was caught stealing "inexpensive items").

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Topics: Ernest Hancock, Viper Militia

Viper Militia

Activist Who Staged Gun Interview At Obama Event Was Prominent Defender Of '90s Militia

Justin Elliott | August 18, 2009, 6:47PM

Ernest Hancock, the online radio host who staged an interview with an assault rifle-wielding associate at the Obama event in Arizona yesterday -- and was himself armed with a 9 millimeter pistol -- was a vocal supporter and friend of right-wing anti-government militia members who were convicted of conspiracy and weapons charges in the 90s.

And in an interview today with TPMmuckraker, Hancock said he still believes the Viper Militia case was "manufactured" by the same government that manufactured Waco and lied to its people about 9/11.

The federal government initially accused the Arizona Viper Militia of plotting to blow up federal buildings, which the twelve-member group cased on videotape.

In July 1996, after a grand jury indicted the suspects, federal agents "seized about 90 high-powered rifles and hundreds of pounds of a bomb-making compound from the shabby bungalow of a man whom officials identified as the ordnance specialist of a local paramilitary group," the New York Times reported at the time.

Hancock, who in recent years designed the famous "Ron Paul rEVOLution" graphic, was an oft-quoted defender of the militia members. The tapes of the government buildings, he said at the time, were purely "educational."

"They don't have criminal records," another press account quoted Hancock, who knew all twelve militia members, as saying. "They just like their guns. And in Arizona, gosh darn it, that's normal."

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Topics: Chris Broughton, Ernest Hancock, Viper Militia

Jack Bonner

More Forged Letters: Astroturf Firm Invoked Struggling Seniors To Argue Against Climate Bill

Justin Elliott | August 18, 2009, 4:35PM

We're now getting a look at some more of those forged letters sent to members of Congress by D.C.-based astroturf specialists Bonner & Associates.

And these new letters plumb the depths of sleaziness.

The letters, written under the names of local senior centers, urged Reps. Kathy Dahlkemper (D-PA), Christopher Carney (D-PA), and Tom Perriello (D-VA), to make changes in the Waxman-Markey climate change bill because fixed-income seniors were worried about energy price hikes.