The FBI reported on May 6 that it had broken up a possibly deadly domestic “terror attack” when it arrested Buford Rogers in Western Minnesota. After raiding his mobile home in the town of Montevideo, law enforcement found Molotov cocktails, suspected pipe bombs and a Romanian AKM assault rife.
Sources on Monday described Rogers as a “militia type” who had started up Black Snake Militia, a group with strong anti-government leanings. Rogers' targets reportedly included local authorities; he “allegedly talked about wanting to bomb the Montevideo Police Department.”
The Minneapolis Star-Tribune described the suspect has having “white supremacist” ties. From the Star-Tribune report:
Several postings on Rogers' Facebook page from June 15, 2011, express his apparent irritation: “The NOW [New World Order] has taken all your freedoms the right to bear arms freedom of speech freedom of the press ...” read one profanity-punctuated message.
You will likely not be surprised that none of Fox News' primetime hosts mentioned the Rogers arrest last night or the looming threat of right-wing extremist violence. That, despite the fact the shows have dedicated countless programming hours in recent weeks to ginning up fear and angst surrounding the terror attack in Boston on Patriot's Day.
Prompted by the arrest of a Muslim suspect, Fox News has spent weeks demonizing Islam by assigning collective blame, as well as targeting Muslims who travel here to study. But yet another far-right, anti-government plot to possibly kill law enforcement officials? At Fox News, that's not a story that draws much concern, especially not from its primetime talkers.
It's true Fox has included a number of on-air mentions about the Minnesota terror news during its daytime programming. But what makes Fox's ho-hum coverage noteworthy is the contrast to its interest in making sweeping generalizations about the Islamic community when terror plots have included Muslims Muslim suspects (or, as we saw with the misguided post-Boston obsession with the “Saudi national,” Muslim victims).
It was a Fox talker who suggested in the wake of the Boston terror attacks that American mosques be bugged and other Constitutional rights for Muslims be eliminated. And it was on Fox that viewers were recently told, “not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorist are Muslims.”
When it comes to allegations of another right-wing extremist terror plot, Fox News is not in a rush to affix collective blame even though the list of far-right, anti-government terror plots, as well as acts of political violence in the form of attacks on women's health clinics, has become quite long in recent years. (Think Progress: “Fifty-six percent of domestic terrorist attacks and plots in the U.S. since 1995 have been perpetrated by right-wing extremists.”)
Note to Fox News: The anti-government terror arrest in Minnesota was hardly an isolated event.