Topic: NewsBusters
An April 15 NewsBsuters post by Noel Sheppard asserted that the Department of Homeland Security report on right-wing extremism " enraged conservatives questioning not only the timing of this report's release within days of liberal media representatives blaming the shootings on rightwing talkers, but also just before Wednesday's tax protesting Tea Parties." Sheppard later expresses concern that the report "conspicuously coincident with high-profile cop killings as well as protests against the current administration's fiscal policies" and demands to know "how it got leaked to the press."
In fact, right-wing radio host Roger Hedgecock is taking credit for revealing the report in his WorldNetDaily column.
Unless Sheppard can prove Hedgecock and WND are part of the vast left-wing conspiracy -- let alone that anything in the report is false -- he perhaps needs to chill out for a bit.
Sheppard also repeats his deflection of responsibility from right-wing media personalities for their extremist rhetoric, insisting that in the DHS report "the Pittsburgh cop killings were used as an example of a potential rise in violence associated with rightwing extremism when it was a domestic dispute between a mother and son which flared out of control." Sheppard curiously ignores all the evidence linking the alleged shooter, Richard Poplawski, to right-wing extremism, as well as the likely possibility that it was Poplawski's embrace of that extremism that made it more likely that an argument with his mother would "flare out of control."
UPDATE: Jamison Foser weighs in as well.
