The Threat Within

America witnessed the spectacle of Rep. Peter King's congressional hearings on the “Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community and That Community’s Response.” In McCarthy-like fashion, King has defended his decision to single out one religious tradition because, in King's opinion, they constitute the greatest threat to the nation and American ideals.

While there is no question that some zealot jihadists are bent on destroying America, the vast majority of Muslims don't fall into that category. In fact, Media Matters for America has compiled a list of right-wing and, predominantly, Christian zealots who, taken together, pose a much greater threat to the health, safety and welfare of the American population. (Below is an abbreviated version of the list. Click on the link above to read the more detailed version.)

October 22, 2008
Two white power skinheads are arrested for allegedly plotting a multi-state robbery and murder spree that would have culminated in an attempt to assassinate then-Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.

December 9, 2008
Law enforcement investigators find radioactive materials and other components for making a "dirty bomb" in the home of Belfast, Maine neo-Nazi James Cummings after Cummings is shot to death by his wife, who told police she killed her husband after years of physical and mental abuse.

January 21, 2009
Brockton, Massachussets neo-Nazi Keith Luke is arrested after shooting three immigrants from Cape Verde, killing two of them. Luke tells police that he is "fighting for a dying race," and that the shootings were just the first stage of his plan for a killing spree. A police report states that he had planned to go to an Orthodox synagogue to "kill as many Jews as possible during bingo night." Luke is being held without bail, awaiting trial for murder, attempted murder, armed kidnapping, and gun charges.

January 22, 2009
Police in Mobile, Alabama discover a "cache of explosives" in the home of white power skinhead Thomas Hayward Lewis during a search conducted after Lewis was arrested for spray-painting swastikas and neo-Nazi slogans on a Messianic Jewish place of worship. The graffiti included "Hitler was right," "Juden raus (German for "Jews get out)," and references to Combat 18, a violent neofascist group based in the United Kingdom that promotes "lone wolf" terrorism.

April 4, 2009
Richard Poplawski, a 23-year-old neo-Nazi with an Iron Eagle tattooed on his chest, murders three police officers in Pittsburgh. The Iron Eagle was a symbol of the Nazi Party under Hitler. According to police, Poplawski, wearing a bulletproof vest and armed with an AK-47, ambushed three officers responding to a domestic disturbance call. Friends and relatives said Poplawski, who posted frequently to the white supremacist website Stormfront, was convinced that Jews controlled the media and that President Obama was going to seize his arsenal of firearms.

May 23, 2009
Anti-government militiaman Joshua Cartwright kills two sheriff's deputies in Okaloosa County, Florida, after they attempt to arrest him on domestic violence charges at a local gun club. After killing the two deputies, Cartwright fled the scene. His vehicle crashed and flipped during a high-speed chase. When Cartwright began firing out the rear window of his wrecked truck, sheriff's deputes returned fire, killing him. According to a police report, Cartwright's wife said he ""believed that the US Government was conspiring against him. She said he had been severely disturbed that Barack Obama had been elected President."

May 30, 2009
Shawna Forde, the leader of Minuteman American Defense, a nativist border vigilante group, leads the home invasion robbery of a man that Forde and her two accomplices, MAD Operations Director Jason Bush and MAD member Albert Gaxiola, believe to be a drug trafficker.

During the robbery, Arivaca, Arizona resident Raul Flores is shot to death in cold blood along with his nine-year-old daughter, Brisenia. Flores' wife is also shot but survived by playing dead.

May 31, 2009
Scott Roeder guns down George Tiller as the Wichita, Kansas doctor serves as an usher at his church. Tiller was the director of Women's Health Care Services, a clinic that performed abortions among providing other health services.

June 10, 2009
Longtime white supremacist James von Brunn opens fire with a rifle just inside the entrance to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, killing a security guard. Prior to the Holocaust museum shooting, von Brunn was best known for attempting to takeover the Federal Reserve building in 1981 armed with a sawed-off shotgun. Brunn, who died in jail last year while awaiting trial, was friends with the late white supremacist leader Ben Klassen, who founded the virulently racist Church of the Creator. Brunn referred to Klassen as an "Aryan genius."

March 28 to March 30, 2010
Nine members of the Hutaree Militia, a "Christian Patriot" group, are arrested in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana. According to a federal indictment, the militia members engaged in paramilitary training in perpetration for an apocalyptic battle with the forces of the Antichrist, who they believed would include local, state and federal law enforcement officers. The indictment charged the militia members with plotting to kill a randomly selected police officer in Michigan, and then detonate improvised explosive devices at the officer's funeral.

May 20, 2010
Two police officers in West Memphis, Ark. are shot to death after pulling over a minivan driven by self-declared "Sovereign Citizen" Jerry Kane, with his son in the passenger seat.

As the officers puzzled over a stack of handmade identification documents Jerry Kane provided, 16-year-old Joseph Kane burst from the minivan firing an AK-47. Both officers were killed. Jerry and Joseph Kane died about 90 minutes later during a gun battle in a Wal-Mart parking lot in which two other officers were wounded.

July 18, 2010
According to a police investigation, Byron Williams opened fire on California Highway Patrol officers who had stopped him on an Oakland freeway for driving erratically. For 12 frantic minutes, Williams traded shots with the police, employing three firearms and a small arsenal of ammunition, including armor-piercing rounds fired from a .308-caliber rifle. In an affidavit, an Oakland police investigator reported that during an interview at the hospital, Williams "stated that his intention was to start a revolution by traveling to San Francisco and killing people of importance at the Tides Foundation and the ACLU."

March 9, 2011
Kevin William Harpham is charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and receiving and possessing an improvised explosive device in relation to the attempted bombing of an Martin Luther King Day parade. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Harpham was previously a member of the National Alliance, an infamous neo-Nazi organization although it's unclear whether he's still a card-carrying member.

Not included in this list is the recent arrest of "Sovereign Citizens" in Alaska who allegedly were plotting to kill several law enforcement officers and a federal judge.

The interesting thing about this list is that there isn't even one jihadist mentioned. Why did Peter King decide to focus solely on radical Muslims and not on violent radicals of all stripes?