Newspaper threatened with ‘another Fort Hood’ for criticizing Tea Party protest

By Daniel Tencer
Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 -- 4:06 pm
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porthuronmichigan Newspaper threatened with another Fort Hood for criticizing Tea Party protestPolice in Michigan are investigating after an irate reader of the Port Huron Times-Herald reportedly called in a threat to the newspaper after it criticized a local House representative's participation in the anti-health reform Tea Party protest two weeks ago.

"A 60-year-old Port Huron woman threatened to take a gun to the newspaper and 'do what they did at Fort Hood,' according to police," the Times-Herald reported on Tuesday.

The threat referred to the shooting deaths of 13 people at the US Army base in Fort Hood, Texas, on November 5. Army psychiatrist Nidal Malik Hasan has been charged with murder in the shootings.

The newspaper says the woman's alleged threat came over an editorial that ran last week which described US House Rep. Candice Miller's participation in the anti-health reform protest as "shameful." Miller, a Republican who represents Michigan's 10th district, reportedly made herself very visible during the November 5 protest on Capitol Hill, organized by Republican firebrand Michele Bachmann.

Among other things, the protest featured a sign that compared Democrats' health care reform efforts to the slaughter of Jews in the Dachau concentration camp.

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The Times-Herald's editorial stated:

Rally participants carried a variety of disturbing signs. One placard had a health care message superimposed over dead bodies from Holocaust concentration camps. One referred to President Barack Obama as "Sambo." One depicted the president as the evil "Joker" from Batman movies. One referred to "Obama and his Marxist buddies."

At one point, the crowd chanted "Nazi, Nazi."

Apparently, our congresswoman is OK with all of this.

The editorial concludes:

If Miller truly has signed up with the right-wing fringe -- the bigots, the hate-mongers and the Nazi-chanters -- all of us in the Blue Water Area might well need to take another look.

Perhaps Miller could start with an apology for her performance at last Thursday's GOP festival of hate.

According to the Editor & Publisher blog, the unnamed woman made her threat to the newspaper the morning the editorial ran. She had called a Gannett call center in Kentucky, where the conversation was recorded. Gannett owns the Times-Herald.

Police identified the source of the call and interviewed a woman at a local address in Port Huron. Police did not say if the woman admitted making the threat. The Times-Herald says police have not yet decided whether the woman will be charged.

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Story comments are below...

  • Name
    The Boston Tea Party was about fighting Corporatism1 The dim bulbs on the right are too deluded to understand this. King George eliminated the tariffs on tea supplied by the East India Trading Company because he "owed" them. Our fascist wingnutty teabagging countrymen apparently never read their own history books. They seem to have all been born without the ability to detect irony either....
  • Savantster
    .
    You expect the party of "we don't need no book learnin'! damn elitist bullshit!" to actually READ? or comprehend what they read?

    No, to them, they "heard" that "the Boston Tea Party was bout not wanting to pay taxes", and leave it at that. That's why these idiots all screech about not having to pay taxes and how paying taxes is un-American.. yet, the Constitution CLEARLY allows the government to lay and collect taxes.. the very document they always espouse to defend goes against 1/2 of their "movement" but they can't see that. Of course, most of them can't read it or understand it, either.
    .
  • barrelhse
    It seems this brainless bitch was going to silence the dissenting voices to protect Freedom of Speech. Absolutely brilliant group they have on the right. Can we have some arrests before the morons KILL somebody again?
  • dave w
    where were all you assholes when bush-cheney started this shit? oh, yeah, you guys are blind party jacks.....with guns and nazi memorablia.....GFYSELVES.....
  • Spiffarino
    I don't like this comment. I friggin' love it.
  • rwshea
    Having suffered through living in Port Huron for a time, I can say that the population there (much like where I am now, unfortunately) is fantastically ignorant and un or under-educated. But that's what the tea party fringe group wants all of us to be - ignorant, submissive plebs. Welcome to the new century, just like the old century (but with more firepower).
  • jerseybounce
    "Ninety-five percent of the people in the World are idiots and I am in grave danger of contamination." - Horace van der Gelder.
  • motorfingaz
    Republicans are some dumb mother-f*ers.


    These fools must be confronted and stopped if this nation is to survive.
  • putheiceback
    Just like FOX is a threat to CNN & MSNBC and vice versa

    We have a lot of the Christian industry whom feel threatened by the Muslim industry and vice versa.

    And free-thinkers that feel threatened by both delusional ideologies. History is proof enough.
  • Max_1
    Why do you think it's not terrorism to bomb abortion clinics but buying shoes from a plant by the CIA is terrorism if the CIA plant claimed he knew how to blow up the Sears Tower, NO?
  • rickpetes
    Could you make your point with less clarity? What the hell are you trying to say????
  • hellian
    Makes one wonder just who orchestrated the Fort Hood shootings and why.Was this man pushed to do what he did by the radical right?Wouldn't make it right but would show a reason why.
  • malvilennon
    First if indeed there was a threat called in to the paper that is very wrong. Violence or the threat of violence is unacceptable. Having said that Tea Party Protests are very different from "Republican Hate Fest ". There are democrats, republicans and independents attending Tea Party protests. I have seen white people, black people, union workers, and CEO's. The one thing the Tea Party folks have in common is that we oppose the Nationalization of Healthcare, we oppose the out of control spending this President and Congress have engaged in, and we oppose Obama's failure to support the troops.
    Before passing judgment on a group perhaps, many of you need to set your hatred and pre convinced ideas aside.
  • LWells
    This women needs to be locked up. And you, malvilennon, are a freak. Absolutely nobody is coming close to even suggesting the "Nationalization of Healthcare". Even a single-payer "Medicare for all" would not be the "Nationalization of Healthcare".

    "Out of control spending"? Only a small fraction of current spending is due to the efforts of Obama. Look it up. And while you're at it, look up "starve the beast". Stupid tea partiers, don't even know that debt is a conservative goal and has been since the bastard reagan.

    "Failure to support the troops"? Where the hell have you been? Conservatives have fought every single bill for our soldiers, including Coburn doing it right now! And lying to get them killed isn't exactly what I would call "support", jackass. From not giving them needed armor to throwing billions at Halliburton so they could electrocute and poison our troops to voting against the new GI Bill to the conditions at Walter Reed to cutting them loose to face the music on torture, conservatives have shit on our troops at every opportunity while using them as props. For you to actually think otherwise shows you to be a total fool who believes idiotic fairy tales.

    You obviously have no idea what you are talking about - hence your presence with the other idiots at the tea parties. And as far as "pre-convinced" ideas go - look in the mirror, no-nothing jackass. Where the hell were you people when all the real shit was going down? Huh, "patriot"? Pathetic. Save your flag waving, because when this country really needed you, you and the rest of the bagger brigade didn't give a shit. Go to hell and stop bothering the adults, uninformed little cry baby. We have enough problems without you people soiling your diapers over imagined offenses. You want to complain to those that caused the problems? Well, too bad, child. You missed it! Now go back to sleep, idiot.
  • starvapor
    That Teabaggers tend to draw a disproportional amount of wing-nuts, loons, militia members and other mentally unstable clowns from a wide spectrum of political, ethnic and labor groups that is the threat to the rest of the general population at large.

    Their combined, misrepresentation and misunderstanding of issues that is the root of their short-sighted, ultimately harmful ideological stance.
  • yvonneo
    Are you saying that because you've seen white people, black people, union workers and CEOs, that means there are democrats, republicans and independents attending tea party protests?

    Criticism is not hatred. Tea baggers are criticized for their willful ignorance of the subject matter of whatever they claim to be opposed to. In this day and age of the internet, there is no longer any excuse to remain ignorant of matters of great importance to the American people. For example, "Nationalization of Healthcare?" WTF?? And where in god's name did you come up with that one? Or, "we oppose the out of control spending this President and Congress have engaged in." But the tea baggers were perfectly okay with the prior administration's handling of spending, huh? You know, the spending that got us in this financial crisis to begin with?!

    And this little gem, "we oppose Obama's failure to support the troops." Where does one even begin with an idiotic statement like that? Where were your voices about the treatment of our soldiers during the bush years? Where was your outrage then?

    Tea baggers have shown themselves to be nothing but a bunch of ignorant racists and bigots, whose cores issues have little to do with healthcare, our soldiers, national security or anything else, and everything to do with opposing anything and everything a "black" president is trying to accomplish--even if it means going against their own best interests--in order to cause him to fail!! Now that's what I call hatred in its ugliest form!!
  • michaeledward
    >>> Tea Party Protests are very different from "Republican Hate Fest ". There are democrats, republicans and independents attending Tea Party protests. <<<

    No, really, there aren't. The Teabaggers are hate mongers of the worst kind. And, independents and democrats stay, far, far away from the lunatics.

    But, congratulations on getting 'teabagger' into the OED.
  • Savantster
    .
    Lying liers and the lies they tell..

    You seem to forget that it was under "the other guy's watch" that the lies to get us into Iraq were spewed.. and funding for the VA was slashed.. who doesn't care about the troops? well, the guys that lied to get them killed, then refused to help them when they got home (that'd be the right-wing, not Obama or the recently majoritied Democratic Congress).

    And, no one is talking about "Nationalizing Healthcare" (unfortunately).. We are talking about putting in a PUBLIC OPTION to the CRIMINAL Insurance companies.. Your talking points are showing again.. And the IRRATIONAL fear that the public option would lead to "governmental takeover of the whole health care industry" is just more flagrant ignorance. Would the insurance companies get smashed? probably.. so? The service they provide is minimal, and should not be done in a for-profit context. Single Payer is the best solution because we all still pay our "insurance", but the bills all get paid (as opposed to now) and the Administration of the "rules behind the policy" are in the hands of the voters, not some protected private interest who is trying to maximize profits.

    90% of all the "tea-baggers" I've seen don't have the slightest clue what they're bitching about, they are just riled up and pissed off and feeling a need to react. Why? 99% of them watch FOX for their world view.. sick and sad and pathetic.

    The right-wing has caused these problems (massive debt, out of control spending, abusive corporate policies).. and you're lashing out against a black Democrat instead of demanding that war criminals like Bush and Cheney be held accountable. You're the opposite of a Patriot, you're a chaos loving fascist.
    .
  • roooth
    1. Please explain why you are ok with anti-trust exempt corporate comtrolled health care that dictates health care to doctors and patients?

    2. You oppose out of control spending but it never occured to you to protest that until we had a black president? Where were you when NINE BILLION dollars was sent to Iraq for bribes and then just disappeared? Where were your protests last November?

    3. "Obama's failure to support the troops"??????? As opposed to sending our guys to die for a lie? As opposed to our guys dying because Bush's war-profiteering buddies took the lucrative military contracts and then left our troops with deadly substandard equipment? Where were your protests then? Now you're mad because Obama won't just rush in and continue the mess Bush made?

    If you were telling the truth, you would have been tea partying for the last eight years.

    What a liar you are. Shame on you for trying to use the troops for your bigotry.
  • roy_T
    Yeah, right ass hole!! you are the people that have the militias
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