The faces of American domestic terrorism

Some might be inclined to call them Christian terrorists (in the same vein as "Islamic terrorists") but I'm not certain without Googling -- which I'm disinclined to do -- whether that is the case for all of those pictured.  It certainly is for Robert Dear, despite what Ted Cruz demagogues says.

Let's stick with 'American terrorists' for the moment, without referring to their religious affiliation, or their race, their political ideology, or even their psychological state.  They and their peers have many of those things in common, but for the purpose of this exercise let's not make the same mistakes conservatives make in generalization.  Kindly take note -- presuming you're familiar with their faces and backstories, of course -- of their different motivations for carrying out their terrorist acts.

Paraphrasing the words attributed to PA state representative Brian Sims, quoted in this Facebook meme (scroll down):

"These are the very familiar faces of terrorism in America. They are not members of ISIS, or Hamas, or the Crips. They are neither Muslim nor atheist. They don't have brown skin, they don't wear a keffiyah or a hoodie. They didn't come to the United States from across the southern border, or on a boat or a raft. They weren't escaping genocide or fleeing a ruthless dictator. They aren't refugees, or 'Ill Eagles', or 'thugs', or foreigners.

"They're all ours, America. What are we going to do about them?"

I'm taking ownership of this very serious problem by using "our" and not "their" in the next-to-last sentence.  Because we're all in this together.

The suggestion box is open.  Who'd like to go first?

Ted Cruz is a transgendered leftist activist

Just like Donald Trump, out to destroy the Republican Party from within.

Speaking with reporters following the (shootings at a Colorado Planned Parenthood), Cruz rejected suggestions that the shooter was part of the anti-abortion movement, taking issue with the “vicious rhetoric on the left blaming those who are pro-life.”

Robert Lewis Dear, 57, was taken into custody Friday night after allegedly opening fire inside a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, killing three and injuring nine others.

When a reporter reminded the Texas senator that the suspect allegedly made a comment about “baby parts” while being arrested, Cruz countered, “It’s also been reported that he was registered as an independent and a woman and transgendered leftist activist, if that’s what he is.”

Dear’s voter registration, where he is listed as a woman, was uncovered by the Gateway Pundit, a self-described "right-of-center news website."

“We know that he was a man who was registered to vote as a woman,” Cruz said. “The media promptly wants to blame him on the pro-life moment when at this point there is very little evidence to suggest that.”

The appropriate response, from Jon Green at AMERICAblog.

Cruz is referring to right wing bloggers, who reported on Saturday that Dear is listed as female on his voter registration. It appears that, like Bill O’Reilly, he checked the wrong box on his form.

Cruz’s campaign later clarified that Cruz didn’t mean to imply that Dear was actually a “transgendered leftist activist,” but rather that “there isn’t enough information.” In other words, it’s just as likely that Dear is exactly who he says he is as compared to a ridiculous caricature of what the right wing imagines white criminals to be. You see a radical conservative Christian, Gateway Pundit sees the opposite. HOW CAN WE TELL THE DIFFERENCE???

Aside from Dear’s penchant for handing anti-Obama literature to complete strangers.

Cruz’s is a particularly lazy form of misdirection, to say nothing of a drastic deviation from the conclusions he was more than willing to jump to following the Paris attacks. He might as well have said that some people think cucumbers taste better pickled. While no less ridiculous, at least that bit of misdirection would have been true.

The somewhat less than appropriate response, from me:

Ted Cruz likes his pickled cucumbers deep up his ass, with a side order of tossed salad.  As far as we know.  That has been reported in the media (this blog).

So if this is how the next twelve months is going to go, we might as well be prepared to counter their facts with some facts of our own.  Right?

Update: "Ted Cruz says there is no ‘war on women’ because we don’t have a condom shortage"

Republicans are not against contraceptives. I've used many different kinds of birth control because it's hard to find extra small condoms.

— Speaker Cruz (@HavanaTed) December 1, 2015