When I heard this weekend that Anonymous was outing KKK members, I was intrigued. When I learned that it was in response to their threats against protesters in Ferguson, I was overjoyed.
We’re still awaiting word from the Grand Jury that’s deciding whether or not to indict Darren Wilson, the police officer who shot and killed Mike Brown in Ferguson over three months ago now. Ferguson’s local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan (seriously – known as the Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan) has been distributing flyers threatening violence toward the “peaceful protesters” (yes, they put peaceful protesters in quotation marks) in Ferguson.
To disarm them, Anonymous decided to dis-hood them! Yes, Anonymous is outing the formerly hooded Klan members – not only in St. Louis County, but around the country, using the Twitter hashtags #OpKKK and #HoodsOff. They also infiltrated and shut down numerous websites associated with the klan, including the one mentioned in the flyer above.
Of course Anonymous has come under attack too. YouTube took down the video explaining the #HoodsOff action – but anonymous simply re-posted it. I’m posting it here locally instead of just embedding the YouTube link, so it should stay up.
Vice News’ Motherboard has a good write-up of what has transpired in this Anonymous-KKK war, and our Twitter friend Anamoly100 has been doing a great job covering it over at Alan Colmes’ Liberaland. She joined me for a few minutes this morning to talk about the story.
I also tried calling a few businesses in Ferguson, MO- and finally got hold of a clerk at a gas station who was worried about the violence, unaware that the KKK was active around there, and thought the protesters were, for the most part, bringing the violence on themselves. Hmmm.
We’ll keep an ear on Ferguson as we await the Grand Jury’s decision.
In the meantime, it’s politics as usual. It’s Monday, so Howie Klein was with me for the segment formerly known as The Steve Israel Hour (and has no new name as of yet).
We discussed the three names being considered to take over as chair of the DCCC – centrist Jared Polis, Wall Street boy toy Jim Himes, and progressive Donna Edwards. I’m all for Donna Edwards – and hope you’ll consider signing the MoveOn petition created to urge Nancy Pelosi to appoint her.
Barring any breaking news that would prevent it, I’ll be back tomorrow with @GottaLaff, and former health insurance industry shill turned whistle blower Wendell Potter on Healthcare.gov 2.o where open enrollment began Saturday. See you tomorrow, radioornot!