July 8, 2016

High-Profile Right Wingers Declare “War” in Wake of Dallas Police Shootings

And the New York Post goes with a cover that provokes a fierce backlash.

On Thursday night, at least one sniper in Dallas opened fire near a peaceful Black Lives Matter protest, killing five police officers and injuring seven others. The shooting marks the deadliest attack on law enforcement in the United States since 9/11. While there has been an outpouring of grief and anger on social media, some high-profile individuals—including a former congressman and a veteran policy adviser to Republican leaders—stirred threats of violence and impending “war” against the Black Lives Matter movement.

From former Illinois Rep. Joe Walsh, in a post that has since been deleted:

Twitter

More from Walsh:

From Alex Jones, conspiracy theorist and radio show host:

From Frank Gaffney, president of the right-leaning Center for Security Policy and former foreign policy adviser to Ted Cruz:

The New York Post‘s front page declared “Civil War”—which quickly drew a fierce backlash.

On his radio show today, right-wing host Rush Limbaugh called Black Lives Matter “a terrorist group committing hate crimes”:

The full transcript of Limbaugh’s remarks: “I found a story from March, I think, of 2015, in which President Obama welcomed two founders of Black Lives Matter to the White House and commemorated them and their efforts and praised them as being better organizers than he is. And… Black Lives Matter was just exactly who they are then as who they are today. They’re a terrorist group. They’re quickly becoming a terrorist group committing hate crimes.”

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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