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James Verini at the Daily Beast notices something we've been tracking here at C&L too: Neo-Nazis and far-right extremists are not only recruiting more openly, they're being much more public in their full-on expressions of racism, nativism, and xenophobia. Unlike David Duke, these characters aren't even trying to hide it:

A year after President Obama's election, hate groups are feeling bolder than they have in over a decade, and their usually insular anger is beginning to spill into the public realm. This weekend, the National Socialist Movement, a neo-Nazi organization, held rallies in Arizona and Minnesota. Those demonstrations came on the heels of similar actions in Southern California, where epithet-spewing white supremacists were forced to disband by rock-throwing counter-protesters. The upsurge in visibility is more than anecdotal—law-enforcement officials are monitoring levels of agitation among extremist groups that they say are the highest since Timothy McVeigh’s deadly attack in Oklahoma City nearly 15 years ago.

The outcries of right-wing tea-partiers, death panellers, birthers, and the like are accompanied by increased activity all along the paranoid fringe.

“It’s sort of a beehive now,” says James Cavanaugh, a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Cavanaugh was one of the agents at the standoff at David Koresh’s Waco, Texas, compound in 1993 (which McVeigh timed his terrorist act to commemorate, two years later, on April 19, 1995). Last October in Tennessee, Cavanaugh aided in the arrest of two white supremacists charged with plotting to assassinate Obama, and in 2007 he helped bring down members of the Alabama Free Militia, who were found with hundreds of hand- and rifle grenades and other explosives. The arrests had an unsettling familiarity. “We haven’t had that kind of activity since the 1990s,” Cavanaugh says.

“We believe there is a real resurgence,” adds Lieutenant David Hall, director of the Missouri Information Analysis Center, which tracks antigovernment extremist groups around the Midwest. “The atmosphere is ripe.”

That was obvious to anyone who was in downtown Phoenix, Arizona, this past weekend:

The Arizona Republic reports that, as is so often the case, the anti-Nazis outnumbered the actual Nazis by about 10-to-1:

Members of the National Socialist Movement, a neo-Nazi group based out of Detroit, were met with a greater number of protesters.

Phoenix police kept the groups apart, as members from both sides shouted insults at each other.

Jeff Schoep, a NSM leader, said his group was standing in defense of America.

J.T Ready of Mesa also spoke at the America First Rally. He said the group was defending his country against invaders.

After about an hour, the neo-Nazis left the capitol to march down Jefferson Avenue before getting into their cars at 12th Avenue.

Andy Hernandez of Phoenix said he was surprised at the different types of people who showed up to protest the neo-Nazis.

"There's all kinds of people, from different races and colors," Hernandez said. "We represent America. We didn't shut them down, but we gave them a counter protest. We just oppose what Nazi represents."

Ironically, that was just what Ready himself whined to a reporter for Phoenix's Fox station in the video above:

Reporter: Do you consider yourself a National Socialist?

Ready: National Socialist? I am.

Reporter: Weren't Nazis considered National Socialists?

Ready: Well, there's a term that starts with an 'N' for calling black people too, uh, so I think that the 'N' term for National Socialists, calling them Nazis, is the same thing.

*Sniff* Gosh, we all should bow our heads in shame for having referenced National Socialists derogatorily. Lord knows they don't deserve it.

Anyway, it's true that the German National Socialists never called themselves "Nazis" because it was a indeed thought to be a derogatory term. On the other hand, American Nazis like George Lincoln Rockwell have always embraced the word. Why should anyone stop calling them what they plainly are?

[H/t Scarce.]

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The New Haven Independent has a complete report on the ugliness that emerged from last weekend's march by an immigrant-rights group marching in the suburb of East Haven, Conn.:

The clash happened during an event organized Saturday by New Haven immigrant advocacy organization Unidad Latina En Accion. More than 100 people marched through the streets of East Haven on Saturday, protesting alleged racial profiling on the part of East Haven police. They met groups of counter-protesters along the way, including a visiting band of white supremacists.

... Two arrests were made following a brief fistfight between a female marcher, Jessica Maldonado of East Haven, and Chelsea Fiorentino, an 18 year-old New Haven woman who was standing with a counter protest made up of members of two white pride organizations. Maldonado’s father, Dimas Maldonado, said that his family has suffered from police harassment. (Click on the play arrow to watch the fight and arrests.)

The argument allegedly started after Chelsea Fiorentino yelled an insult at Maldonado, who then crossed the street and confronted her. East Haven police quickly separated the women, placed them under arrest, and kept the march moving. The women were charged with breach of peace and assault; Maldonado was also charged with interfering with an officer.

It appears, from watching the video compiled by the Independent, that there were other near-brawls along the way. That's not terribly surprising: White supremacists and other haters turn out to these things in the hopes of starting fights, and they often succeed.

But watching this tape, one can't help but feel a sense of foreboding about what's likely to occur when immigration reform comes up on the national plate this fall. These people are already organized and already inclined to violence. If you thought the town-hall teabaggers went nuts over health-care reform, just wait.

As the mounting weirdness that is emanating from right wingers continues to flow, an increasing amount of death threats follow.

Since Mr Obama took office, the rate of threats against the president has increased 400 per cent from the 3,000 a year or so under President George W. Bush, according to Ronald Kessler, author of In the President's Secret Service.

Some threats to Mr Obama, whose Secret Service codename is Renegade, have been publicised, including an alleged plot by white supremacists in Tennessee late last year to rob a gun store, shoot 88 black people, decapitate another 14 and then assassinate the first black president in American history.

Most, however, are kept under wraps because the Secret Service fears that revealing details of them would only increase the number of copycat attempts. Although most threats are not credible, each one has to be investigated meticulously.

According to the book, intelligence officials received information that people associated with the Somalia-based Islamist group al-Shabaab might try to disrupt Mr Obama's inauguration in January, when the Secret Service co-ordinated at least 40,000 agents and officers from some 94 police, military and security agencies.

Being black has definitely increased the number of nut jobs on the prowl, but because he's in the Democratic party that number is much higher. And it's only going to get worse from here. The violent rhetoric from talk radio and FOX News continues to throw gasoline on the fire. Remember Dr. Tiller?

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SPLCenter: When an organization that monitors the activities of the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazi groups and other white supremacists, goes after Lou Dobbs and his enablers at CNN, it matters.

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Back in 2004, someone sent a letter bomb to Don Logan, the director of the Office of Diversity and Dialogue in Scottsdale, Ariz. Logan suffered serious burns on his hands and arms, and two other people suffered minor injuries.

At the time, it was clear that both federal and local authorities wanted to treat the case as an "isolated incident" unconnected to any racial matters. The chief line of investigation was into Logan's personal background, to see if he might have had financial dealings that created enemies. Unsurprisingly, the trail went cold in short order.

Yesterday, the FBI finally arrested three white supremacists in the case:

An undercover ATF sting raided white supremacists in at least three states on Thursday in an investigation connected to the 2004 letter bombing of Don Logan, an African-American who worked for a diversity program in Scottsdale, Arizona.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms infiltrated "several" undercover agents into white supremacist circles as part of the investigation, according to court records.

In Arizona, Dennis and Daniel Mahon were arrested this week by the ATF on a sealed indictment issued June 16.

In Missouri, Robert Neil Joos was arrested by the ATF on a firearms charge. An ATF affidavit said the arrest resulted from a multi-year investigation into the Logan bombing.

According to the affidavit, Dennis Mahon called Joos on the morning of the bombing.

Dennis Mahon has been a player in the white-supremacy movement for a couple of decades now:

Dennis Mahon is a white supremacist and anti-Semite who has been active in several states in the Midwest and in Arizona. He has held leadership positions within various white supremacist groups, including the Ku Klux Klan and White Aryan Resistance (WAR), a now-defunct group led by long-time white supremacist Tom Metzger.

In 1991, Mahon even embarked on a Klan/neo-Nazi recruitment tour in Europe.

Mahon claims to have befriended Timothy McVeigh when both were hanging out at Elohim City, the violent white-supremacist enclave in the Ozarks.

Likewise, Robert Joos has been a figure on the white-supremacist right for some time. He was arrested for pulling a gun on a cop during a traffic pullover in Missouri in 1994. Joos is a hardcore "dual seedline" adherent of the white-supremacist Christian Identity movement, and is mostly regarded a paranoid recluse. However, as the Joplin Globe notes, he is also known to have some expertise in explosives:

Joos is characterized in the affidavit as a “long-time white supremacist associate and an expert on weapons, explosives, bomb making and general survival skills.”

Joos allegedly told undercover operatives that he knew how to make napalm and agreed to train others, and that he used caves on his property for concealment and shelter. The caves were stockpiled with food, water and weapons, according to the affidavit.

After awhile, it ceased to surprise me when these cases were buried during the Bush administration -- which treated terrorism mostly as a marketing tool. It's a relief to see them get the handling they deserve now.

[Shawn Stuart, Iraq War veteran, at a 2006 neo-Nazi rally in Olympia, WA.]

Remember how the right-wingers screamed and yelled about that Homeland Security bulletin which indicated that white supremacists might be recruiting Iraq war veterans or pushing recruitment within military ranks?

Remember how the ensuing hissy fit ended with Janet Napolitano apologizing (for a report that originated in the Bush administration)? Notice how even now, after the report has been proven prescient in its warning about "lone wolf" domestic terrorists, guys like Joe Scarborough are still trying to claim that it "insulted our veterans"?

Well, Matt Kennard at Salon has an eye-opening report that should permanently shut up the right-wing whining, because it demonstrates clearly the broad nature of the problem -- namely, not only are veterans being actively recruited, but neo-Nazis and other radicals are actively joining up to fight -- and the military is turning a blind eye to it:

Since the launch of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. military has struggled to recruit and reenlist troops. As the conflicts have dragged on, the military has loosened regulations, issuing "moral waivers" in many cases, allowing even those with criminal records to join up. Veterans suffering post-traumatic stress disorder have been ordered back to the Middle East for second and third tours of duty.

The lax regulations have also opened the military's doors to neo-Nazis, white supremacists and gang members — with drastic consequences. Some neo-Nazis have been charged with crimes inside the military, and others have been linked to recruitment efforts for the white right. A recent Department of Homeland Security report, "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment," stated: "The willingness of a small percentage of military personnel to join extremist groups during the 1990s because they were disgruntled, disillusioned, or suffering from the psychological effects of war is being replicated today." Many white supremacists join the Army to secure training for, as they see it, a future domestic race war. Others claim to be shooting Iraqis not to pursue the military's strategic goals but because killing "hajjis" is their duty as white militants.

Soldiers' associations with extremist groups, and their racist actions, contravene a host of military statutes instituted in the past three decades. But during the "war on terror," U.S. armed forces have turned a blind eye on their own regulations. A 2005 Department of Defense report states, "Effectively, the military has a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy pertaining to extremism. If individuals can perform satisfactorily, without making their extremist opinions overt … they are likely to be able to complete their contracts."

Carter F. Smith is a former military investigator who worked with the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command from 2004 to 2006, when he helped to root out gang violence in troops. "When you need more soldiers, you lower the standards, whether you say so or not," he says. "The increase in gangs and extremists is an indicator of this." Military investigators may be concerned about white supremacists, he says. "But they have a war to fight, and they don't have incentive to slow down."

Tom Metzger is the former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan and current leader of the White Aryan Resistance. He tells me the military has never been more tolerant of racial extremists. "Now they are letting everybody in," he says.

Now, much of this, in fact, we have already reported at C&L. Indeed, this is not a new problem, as Kennard makes clear:

Following an investigation of white supremacist groups, a 2008 FBI report declared: "Military experience — ranging from failure at basic training to success in special operations forces — is found throughout the white supremacist extremist movement." In white supremacist incidents from 2001 to 2008, the FBI identified 203 veterans. Most of them were associated with the National Alliance and the National Socialist Movement, which promote anti-Semitism and the overthrow of the U.S. government, and assorted skinhead groups.

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Republicans seem to have picked a meme for fighting the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court: She's a racist!

It's on all the wingnut tongues. We had Tom Tancredo spewing this line on The Ed Show yesterday -- yeah, the same Tom Tancredo who once sang "Dixie" with the members of a white supremacist organization, and whose entire presidential candidacy was built on bashing Latinos.

You could kinda see where this was going then.

Sure enough, the rest of the Right's leading Racial Sensitivity icons -- Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter and Pat Buchanan -- all were singing the same chorus: "She's a raaaaaacist!"

Limbaugh: The infamous Donovan McNabb incident is only the tip of his lengthy race-baiting record.

Beck: The guy who likes to link Latinos to crime and hyperventilates about Mexican crime regularly.

Coulter: The woman whose new book soft-pedals the existence and activities of white supremacists.

Buchanan: The man whose recent books have been rehashings of old white-supremacist eugenics from the early 20th century, fretting about white privilege being overturned by an evil brown tide.

Coulter's a classic case of this: As Diane Sawyer tried to get her to talk about the upside of seeing a Hispanic woman nominated to the Supreme Court, Coulter dourly refused, pouting that liberals hadn't done the same for Clarence Thomas or the execrable Miguel Estrada.

Yeah, those are just ideal people to be leading this charge for Republicans.

UPDATE: Newt Gingrich joins the parade. He fits right in.

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WHAS-11, a local station in Louisville, Kentucky, ran a news story earlier this week examining the ongoing fortunes of the Imperial Klans of America, which recently lost a $2.5 million lawsuit filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center. In spite of those setbacks, the IKA is marching onward:

"I don't believe any country can survive with multi-culturalism. I believe that we should all have our own states; we should all have our own countries. If you look at race mixing, homosexuality and abortion our race is basically being defeated. There won't be a lot of whites left in another 20 years," says Edwards.

It's Ron Edwards and other white supremacists greatest fear, a fear that's prompted countless hate crimes all over the country. Recently, in Meade County, five IKA members attacked a 15-year-old Panamanian teenager. The Southern Poverty Law Center, founded by Morris Dees, sued Ron Edwards for the attack, claiming his teachings led directly to the assault. The Southern Poverty Law Center won that case, a sweeping victory that Morris says, bankrupted the IKA organization.

"I think the case against Ron Edwards and the IKA was very successful. At the beginning of this he had 23 chapters in 17 states. Now they're down to 6 chapters in five states. The money is pretty much dried up and he's a near shadow of himself," says Morris Dees, Founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Ron Edwards disagrees.

"The IKA is going stronger than ever," he says.

Melanie Kahn asks, "Over the past six months to a year or so how much has the IKA membership grown?"

"Quite a bit, that's all I'll say," says Edwards.

There's no evidence to support Edwards' claim, but there is evidence that other hate groups in Kentucky and across the country are in fact, growing. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center's annual "Year in Hate" report, hate group membership has grown by 50% since 2000, and 5% just since last year.

On April 7, the Department of Homeland security released a report affirming that claim and cited several reasons for the rise of hate groups.

Worth remembering, perhaps, is the fact that Edwards' son leads the skinhead group to which belonged the two skinheads arrested in Tennessee last year for plotting to murder dozens of black people and to assassinate President Obama.

The story illustrates how white supremacists like the Klan can take real body blows and yet keep on ticking. As someone involved in the 30-year struggle to take down the Aryan Nations, it rang a very familiar bell.

I've been reading Leonard Zeskind's magisterial new book, Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margins to the Mainstream, which will probably become the definitive text for many years to come on the state of white nationalism and white-supremacist ideology in America. (The official book site is here.)

The book is a stunningly complete documentation of how white nationalism, once banished to the fringes, has been working itself back into the mainstream of American discourse (something which is, of course, the major topic of my own book, The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right). I've known Zeskind for some years -- his research prowess was legendary even in the '90s, and many of us have been waiting years for him to assemble it all in one place.

Bill Berkowitz at Religion Dispatches interviewed Zeskind, who talked about why he wrote it:

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[Derek Black, right, and his dad Don Black, January 10, 2007, "Values Voters" Conference in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.]

White supremacists have been trying to reinsert themselves back into the mainstream (where once upon a time they were common) for a long time now. One of the chief avenues for this effort has for years been the Republican Party in the South, particularly in places like Louisiana, where David Duke operates, and Mississippi, where the Council of Conservative Citizens has a friend in Gov. Haley Barbour. It's all part of the legacy of the Southern Strategy.

In Florida, Republicans are now being confronted with the legacy of the Southern Strategy in the person of Derek Black:

Derek Black says "of course" he will attend a meeting Wednesday for new members of Palm Beach County's Republican Executive Committee. Never mind that the party chairman says Black's "white supremacist" associations are not welcome and he will not be seated.

"I was elected," Black, 19, says.

Sporting a black hat, the son of former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard Don Black was seated last week in a restaurant off Southern Boulevard. Sitting next to him was one of his supporters: David Duke, former Louisiana state legislator and another former KKK grand wizard.

"We're going to fight," Duke said. "I know Derek Black is going to fight for his constitutional liberties. That's why I'm here, because I want to assist Derek."

Sorry, says county GOP Chairman Sid Dinerstein. In the qualifying period in June, Black didn't sign a loyalty oath pledging he would not do anything injurious to the party. And that's not the only problem.

"He participates in white supremacist activities," Dinerstein said. "We're the party of Lincoln. We're the party that says we don't judge anybody by the color of their skin."

There's a familial connection between David Duke and Derek Black: Derek's mother, Chloe Black, was previously married to Duke, and their son is Derek's half-brother. But there's also a strategic connection, in that Duke did the same thing himself in the 1980's and '90s in Louisiana, largely taking advantage of the Republicans' Southern Strategy.

In his book on the Southern Strategy, Joseph Aistrup describes this (cited here):

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