The Mexicans are coming! And Virgil Goode and the Minutemen are going to stop them!He said he financed the low-budget film himself. He wouldn't say how much it cost. Burgard said he is still searching for a distributor.
Much of the film documents the work of the Minutemen. It shows Wilcox riding with Burgard and his wife, Lisa Turner Burgard, the film's executive producer, on a big blue bus along the Southwest border.
[First posted on www.democraticcentral.com]
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups, includes the Minutemen Civil Defense Corps (MCDC) among those whom they monitor. Oh, and in case you think that the SPLC is just a bunch of liberals -- their source for much of this is a July 20, 2006, article in the Washington Times.
It seems that Simcox is now getting in trouble with his right-wing allies -- the SPLC has an intriguing story of fraud and deceit over the MCDC's fund-raising to build a high-tech fence across 70 miles of the Arizona-Mexico border. Simcox had promised a fence costing $150 a foot; what he is building is standard cattle fencing, at about $1.50 a foot. In the words of the American Border Patrol's leader Glenn Spencer, "it wouldn't stop a tricycle." So where has the rest of the money gone? The MCDC is not a charity, so it is not required to say.
The SPLC article makes reference to the fact that there is a Minuteman PAC, Inc. I looked at the on-line records for the Minuteman PAC, Inc. See index of records at http://images.nictus...
There are some fascinating things in those records.
1. The Minuteman PAC is a direct-mail machine. It raised over $990,000 last year from its direct mail operation.
2. Minuteman PAC contributed, by my count, $29,000 to Congressional and Senate candidates in 2006. The big winners were Doug Lamborn, running from the 5th CD in Colorado, and Randy Graf, Arizona's 8th, who both got $10,000. Steve Laffey, running for Senate in Rhode Island, got $5,000. Tom Tancredo, Colorado-6, got $1,000, as did Steve King, Iowa-5, John Hostettler, Indiana-8, and Jim Gilchrist, California-48. Hostettler sent the money back.
3. The contribution to Gilchrist is fascinating, because, as the SPLC story points out, he is one of the founders of The Minutemen Project, and he and Simcox have been battling for control of the Minutemen. Finally, MCDC split off from The Minutemen Project, and no one is telling where the money went. In any event, Gilchrist ran for Congress in 2005 (special election) under the banner of the Constitution Party, and he came in 3rd with 25% of the vote. According to the SPLC, his campaign was funded in significant part by the National Alliance, one of the largest neo-Nazi groups in the country. The Minuteman PAC records show that the $1,000 was sent to Jim Gilchrist's Congressional campaign to help retire the debt, and that the check was sent to the campaign office at 2400 Earlsgate Court, Reston, Virginia. The Minuteman PAC records also show that the formal address of the PAC, at least through the April, 2006, fundraising report, was 2400 Earlsgate Court, Reston, Virginia.
4. The PAC also spent about $56,000 buying advertising on behalf of Sharron Angle, Nevada-2, who came within 400 votes of getting the Republican nomination in 2006.
5. The PAC also spent about $46,000 on advertising on behalf of Timothy Walberg, Michigan-7, who actually got elected in 2006. He is described by folks who know him as a "drown the government in a bathtub" conservative. http://walbergwatch....
6. Among the big expenditures was a total of $22,500 paid to American Caging, Inc., which the PAC leaders have said is for accounting services. Put aside for a moment the question of why an accounting firm would be named "American Caging, Inc." American Caging, MCDC, and the Minuteman PAC are all intertwined. As the SPLC says about American Caging, Inc.,
American Caging apparently has some trouble keeping its own books in order. The Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts office lists the status of American Caging Inc. as "not in good standing" because it "has not satisfied all state tax requirements." (American Caging Inc.'s biggest client is Declaration Alliance, a right-wing consortium established by Alan Keyes in 1996 to oppose legalized abortion and civil rights for gays and lesbians. MCDC is identified on its website as "a project of Declaration Alliance," leading Simcox critics to speculate Declaration Alliance may be taking a large cut of MCDC donations.)
Anyway, this has been a long digression, but it is important to know who Virgil Goode is in bed with.
Comments
In separate interviews with the Intelligence Report, two of Simcox's former colleagues at Wildwood and his first ex-wife gave the same account. They said that Simcox helped his daughter get a job babysitting for a Wildwood School employee and that one night, Simcox's daughter showed up unexpectedly at her employer's house, visibly upset, alleging that her father had just attempted to sexually molest her."He tried to molest our daughter when he was intoxicated," said Deborah Crews, Simcox's first ex-wife and the girl's mother. "When she ran out, he tried to say he was just giving her a leg massage and she got the wrong idea."
Contacted by the Report, Simcox refused to answer four direct questions about the molestation allegations. "I would never answer those questions to you. You can't ask those questions," he said. "You're on a witch hunt and you're trying to discredit our movement, which is to secure the borders. ... My personal life has nothing to do with anything that goes on here."
No charges were filed against Simcox, but Crews said she and her daughter immediately broke off all contact with him.
"He's a drastic, chaotic, very dangerous guy," said Crews. "I'm surprised he hasn't shot anybody yet. I see him on TV and I have to turn if off, because it makes me sick to see him getting all this attention."
George Allen campaigned with Simcox too.
But there's more. According to his other ex-wife, who obtained a court order to have sole custody of their son, he was violence prone even towards his family:
The truth is more complex and troubling. Court records obtained by the Center's Intelligence Project show Simcox's second ex-wife, Kim Dunbar, filed an emergency appeal in September 2001 to obtain full custody of their teenage son because she feared that Simcox had suffered a mental breakdown and was dangerous.http://www.splcenter...Dunbar declined to be interviewed for this article, but her sworn affidavits speak for themselves. In one, Dunbar testified that throughout their 10-year marriage, Simcox was prone to sudden, violent rages.
"He once took a knife from the kitchen and threatened to kill himself," she testified. "When he was angry, he broke furniture, car windows, he banged his head against the wall repeatedly and punched things."
Dunbar said that when their son was 4 years old, Simcox slapped him so hard that a mark remained on his face for two days. Another time, she testified, she grabbed her young son in her arms and jumped out a window because Simcox was throwing furniture at them.
After such episodes, she said, Simcox would become despondent. "He would stare at walls, mumbling to himself." In the affidavits, Dunbar said she repeatedly pressured Simcox to seek professional help and even tried to have him hospitalized. But he persistently refused treatment.
"Eventually," she said, "the only thing I could do was file for divorce."
Simcox and Dunbar initially shared custody of their son. There was no legal dispute until shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, when Dunbar suddenly filed a flurry of emergency appeals.
"While Chris has always been prone to strong opinions and ranting behavior, this last episode has gone even farther," she told the court. "I am convinced he has had some kind of mental lapse and I am now, more than ever, afraid for my son to be in Chris' care."
Dunbar grew frightened after Simcox left her a series of bizarre voicemail messages beginning that Sept. 13, in which he went on angry diatribes about the Constitution, patriotism, and impending nuclear attacks on Los Angles, and talked about training their 15-year-old son in the use of firearms.
"I will begin teaching him the art of protecting himself with weapons," Simcox said in one recorded message he left for Dunbar. "I purchased another gun. I have more than a few weapons, and I intend on teaching my son how to use them." Simcox added, "I will no longer trust anyone in this country. My life has changed forever, and if you don't get that, you are brainwashed like everybody else."
In phone conversations with his son that his ex-wife recorded and submitted to the court as evidence of Simcox's mental instability, he challenged the boy to become "a man and a real American."
"You better stop playing baseball, buddy, and you better do something real, 'cause life will never be the same," Simcox thundered. "I'm going to go down to the Mexican border and sign up for the government for border patrol to protect the borders of the country that I love. You hear how serious I am."
Simcox's son asked his father what would happen to his cat, Moe. "Moe may end up on the dead pile, " Simcox said.
The court ruled in Dunbar's favor, ending the joint custody arrangement and awarding Dunbar sole custody of their son.
xenophobic positioning.
Apparently there was a recent "coup" attempt at MMP to give MMP head Gilchrist the boot. From the For The Cause website: [http://www.forthecau...]
There is a "sister" organization: "For The Cause" that is linked by their webmaster...who was Pat Buchanan's former campaign manager. She is also the webmaster for Pat's current web site: [http://www.buchanan....]
Fitting the pieces together....
I also don't trust the SPLC frankly, you need a 2nd source.
They have been discredited by Harpers Magazine expose and have their own interesting money troubles.
I've seen them label some groups as "hate" groups because they don't like their positions, not the same thing frankly.
I mean things that cannot be confirmed independently and ONLY the SPLC claims them are really suspect.
wanting to secure the border is not equal to hate groups.
(although the MM civil defense groups seems to be a "Ripoff" group versus a grasroots group from what I've seen).
see the multiple investigations mid page.
This is fairly important to read for as I said, you really need a second source with these people, I've chased down more than a few and have found some things that absolutely I could not verify anywhere, anyhow, others yes, they are right...
but I'm fairly convinced there is some "politikin'" behind them and why I strongly recommend a 2nd source to verify.
And you're right -- the more sources the better.
But I find even Simcox's public "sanitized" philosophy repugnant. Nor do I like Lou Dobbs' position.
One reporter who spent a little time along with Simcox reports:
After 9/11, Simcox confessed that he went crazy. He got fired from the school, his wife divorced him and took their teenage son. "My life collapsed," he said. He exiled himself to the Arizona desert, to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, a remote and hallucinatory place where the cactus looked like men with guns, or women dancing. He began to call himself a 21st century Paul Revere, certain that terrorists were creeping across the border.
The Anti-Defamation League noted: "[Simcox] has engaged in bizarre conspiracy theories, including the notion that the Mexican Army is using "Chinese troops" and weaponry. http://www.adl.org/P...
At this point I start to hear the Twilight Zone music playing.
I don't know if the reporter in this piece below double checked the sources or borrowed from the two who wrote the SPLC report.
http://www.usatoday.... But a good reporter, and an editor, are supposed to go behind even previously reported facts.
You know, you can some out and say you admire Simcox. I'll respectfully disagree. But the SPLC piece is somewhat corroborated by factoids reported elsewhere. And given Simcox's apparent love for physical confrontation and his display of extreme emotions on the immigration issue . . .
Simcox I believe is verified as a racist power grabbing corporate wacko, but on many other points, no, SPLC is beyond "issues"...read the article and Harper's obviously, isn't a "conservative rag".
but don't get me wrong, Simcox is a psycho in my book and I believe there are many sources you can get that info from.
But, I also don't think the MMCD and the MM project should be put together for they are quite different...
MMCD I think should be relabeled "corporate men snow job project" from what I've seen.
The point is to use credible sources and they simply are not...and right now one of the huge corporate cheap labor lobby strategies is to call anyone, anyone at all, who points out their global trading of people, cheap labor agenda as being a disaster for working people...
they call them a racist xenophobe as a talking point.
I've seen people who have advocated for minorities, people who ARE minorities, liberal Democrats, green party people and so forth...called racist xenophobes routinely...
and this sort of crud has to stop and the #1 "source" people use is the SPLC when the reality is they are randomly labeling organizations and think tanks "hate" groups simply because they don't like the policy conclusions.
SPLC has been useful in that regard and frankly, that's not too good of a thing, GOP or Dem ,to name call, smear without proof or even a little bit of proof, in order to push some sort of policy agenda through.
And I certainly am against exploiting cheap labor, not providing health care, etc. I think we're agreed on Simcox then.
Interesting to see how some people (and organizations) start out with a real zeal and then realize -- "hey, I can make a living doing this ..."
It's too bad that more (almost none do) advocacy groups don't address issues on a fair pro-con basis (no strawman arguments) and then say -- we think "pro" is the better argument because ...
I'll read those SPLC articles
Had a history professor once who was always pointing out how political, religious, etc. movements started out with pure goals and then morphed into an institution dedicated to self-enrichment and self-preservation. Maybe that happened to the SPLC.
(I started speaking out about 2004) and it's enormous, reading this paper, reading that one, checking the math, checking the money and so on.
We really need a true middle class lobby and unfortunately, of course, there is no money in it!