Minutemen Founder Corrupt, Dreams of Hundreds of Racists Shattered

[seasat]

A piece by Wonkette Reports:

Remember the Minutemen? The crazy old white people who piled into pickup trucks and rode down the border to not shoot illegal immigrants but maybe scare them a little? They’re having a little financial trouble. Which is odd, considering how well xenophobia usually pays.

Here's the SPLC article with the details:

Simcox has been under fire from MCDC chapter leaders and rank-and-file members since last summer, when he began refusing to account for the $1.6 million to $1.8 million in private donations he said MCDC had raised by the end of May 2006. That sum included $600,000 for the "Minuteman Border Fence," which Simcox touted in a slick fundraising materials as a high-tech "Israeli-style" barrier, but which turned out to be little more than a barbed-wire cattle fence.

Simcox has yet to fully disclose exactly how much money MCDC has raised, how much is still in the bank, and where the rest of the money went. "To date, there has not been a serious form of financial accountability to Chapter leadership," the May 8 letter to Simcox stated. "We believe strongly that current accountability should be provided to each local and State chapter upon request. Current and past requests go unanswered."

Who knew that chicken wire cost so much? Sounds like Simcox was saving up to buy Duke Cunningham's yacht. Well, if his group falls apart, he can always find a job with some of the Repug presidential campaigns. He has the xenophobic view and is experienced in being corrupt. He'd be a perfect match.

[Raven]

1. They were up here in NH recently protecting us from those nasty Canadians.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

2. Undoutedly...

Hordes of them were massed on the border, armed with Poutine' and Timmy's donuts and bear claws. They are a vicious, vicious bunch.

[UTUSN]

6. K&R for the great Vermonters who kicked them out a couple of yrs ago!!1

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http://www.boston.com/news/local/vermont/articles/2005/10/16/volunteers_get_cold_reception_in_vermont?mode=PF

Volunteers get cold reception in Vermont

They run into protest and walk through wild to watch Canada border
By Yvonne Abraham, Globe Staff | October 16, 2005

NEWPORT, Vt. -- It's hard to save the United States from illegal immigrants when you can't find the border. ....

But these Minutemen were forced out of town by a larger crowd of protesters, who denounced their opposition to illegal immigration as a front for racism. ....

Back on the bike path, the three Minutemen trudged on in the rain. Finally, they knocked on Amy Audet's door to ask directions.

The border, she told them, was in the opposite direction.



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/30/AR2005103000822.html

On Patrol in Vt., Minutemen Are the Outsiders

Along the Border, Group Targets Illegal Immigrants

By David A. Fahrenthold
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 31, 2005; Page A02

.... They began scouting out potential sites several weeks ago, poking around this hamlet with a downtown almost directly on the border. It was in Derby Line that they had their first problem with the elusive border. On one scouting expedition, member Bob Casimiro said they became, for a moment, illegal visitors in Canada.

Then came their first official patrol two weekends ago, which was dogged by protesters who assembled downtown and shouted slogans such as "Take your hate out of our state." The Minutemen had to patrol a bike path away from town, and then -- as the Boston Globe reported -- got lost and had to ask a local for directions. ....

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[LostinVA]

7. The thought of mandatory Curling in school petrified me

[panader0]

3. Those a-holes have been around here alot

The old farts sat in lawn chairs in the back of their pick-up trucks with their flags and their binoculars and their ice-chest and their two way radios and their guns. Too too bad you old fools. Har har har

[in_cog_ni_to]

4. Maybe he's saving up to buy more Confederate Flags....he and all his racist buddies

drove to the border with their flags in tow. Maybe they need new ones.:(

[UTUSN]

5. Wonkette has been hot on the MM's rotten core for a long time

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http://iapprovethismessiah.com/2006/08/moons-paper-and-minutemen.html

Wonkette: if the Border Patrol is short handed, why not call out the Minutemen? You know, the more-bark-than-bite nationalist “movement” that, according to the ACLU and the Southern Poverty Law Center, Jerry Seper and the Washington Times largely invented out of the ether? Mind you, we’re not complaining. We’re big fans of making mountains out of molehills...

http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=635

Anti-Immigration Movement

Newspapers Inflated Minuteman Numbers

, Report Finds

Moon's paper and the Minutemen

The report, "Creating the Minutemen," is based on an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) analysis of 581 articles and editorials printed in major U.S. newspapers between January 2005 and February 2006. The ACLU has been highly critical of the Minutemen, and ACLU volunteers closely monitored the group.

The first of those articles, "Volunteers Set to Monitor Border Crossings," by Jerry Seper of the hard-right Washington Times, reported that 240 volunteers had signed up. By early March, Seper was reporting that the number of volunteers had "more than tripled," came from every state, and included 16 pilots with aircraft.

During the last two weeks of March 2005, the media hype shifted into overdrive. Fifteen journalists reported the Minuteman Project had signed up "at least 1,000 volunteers." The Inland Valley Daily Bulletin ran a March 23, 2005, article headlined "2,000 volunteers expected for Minuteman Project."

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