Pat Sellers was the one with lots of tea bags hanging on the brim of his hat.

You may remember Pat Sellers wearing a hat with lots of tea bags hanging all around the brim on the “Bloc of Four’s” Election Day.

Pat Sellers was the campaign director for the election of the “Bloc of Four”. That is the election of Patsy Ray, Robin Scott Johnson, Kareem Johnson and Kurt Schenk.

This is an excerpt from a Lancaster Intelligencer Journal article from Thursday April 11, 1996:

“Sellers, and electrical worker who trails his opponent in the race, has also come under fire recently for seeking the support of Larry Pratt, a former aide to presidential candidate Pat Buchannan.

Pratt is executive director of Gun Owners of America. He left the Buchanan Campaign after the media reported on his ties to the Ku Klux Klan and the white supremacist group Aryan Nation.”

You can find the entire article here:
http://www.box.net/shared/7j62u1705d

Larry Pratt Books:
Armed People Victorious (1990).
Safeguarding Liberty: The Constitution and Citizen Militias (1995).
On the Firing Line: Essays in the Defense of Liberty (2001).

Pat Sellers had a recent column in the Daily Local News explaining why global warming is a farce, “statistics indicate the globe is cooling”:
http://www.dailylocal.com/articles/2009/08/03/opinion/srv0000005999014.txt

I don’t think Pat Sellers is a bomb maker; I think that he is a writer and political organizer.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has a new report on militia groups in the United States.

“THE SECOND WAVE, RETURN OF THE MILITIAS”

“THIS IS THE MOST SIGNIGFIGANT GROWTH WE’VE SEEN IN 10 TO 12 YEARS. ALL IT’S LACKING IS A SPARK. I THINK IT’S ONLY A MATTER OF TIME BEFORE YOU SEE THREATS AND VIOLENCE.”

“The current political environment is awash with seemingly absurd but nonetheless influential conspiracy theories, hyperbolic claims and demonized targets, and this creates a milieu where violence is a likely outcome.”

The report concludes with:
“TERROR FROM THE RIGHT-75 plots, conspiracies and racist rampages since Oklahoma City.”

http://www.splcenter.org/images/dynamic/main/The_Second_Wave.pdf

From the Department of Homeland Security OFFICE OF INTELLIGENCE AND ANALISIS:

"(U//FOUO) Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment
7 April 2009
Prepared by the Extremism and Radicalization Branch, Homeland Environment Threat Analysis Division. Coordinated with the FBI.

(U//FOUO) DHS/I&A assesses that a number of economic and political factors are driving a resurgence in rightwing extremist recruitment and radicalization activity.

Despite similarities to the climate of the 1990s, the threat posed by lone wolves and small terrorist cells is more pronounced than in past years. In addition, the historical election of an African American president and the prospect of policy changes are proving to be a driving force for rightwing extremist recruitment and radicalization."

http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/rightwing.pdf

Like I wrote Pat Sellers is not a bomb maker. But I do expect that there is a resurgence in the kinds of things Pat Sellers writes about right now. I think he must be very busy.

It is distasteful rummaging in the hatemonger websites of the extreme right wing.

But back in 2003 to 2006 there were a lot of posts concerning Coatesville on the Stormfront.org and FreeRepublic.com websites. It was mostly related to government taking privately owned land by eminent domain. There was plenty of overt racism mixed in. And there were occasionally threats against Coatesville government officials.

Some can still be found here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/saha/index?tab=articles

There is still an occasional post on those sites concerning Coatesville. Some of the posts on those sites about Coatesville are blatantly racist and /or anti-Jewish.

If you decide to look on Stormfront.org or FreeRepublic.com, keep a barf bucket handy.

Some comment posts on the Daily Local News that are about Coatesville are suggestive of racism. The outright racist remarks are removed.

Articles about the shooting by the white supremacist terrorist at the Holocaust Museum mention that information about and posts by the terrorist shooter, James W. von Brunn was found on the Stormfront.org website and on FreeRepublic.com website. Some of the posts by and about von Brunn have been removed.

The report by the DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY in April warned that "current conditions resemble those in the early 1990s. That period culminated in the second worst terrorist bombing in US history; the Oklahoma City Bombing".

The DHS report can be found here:
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/5403248/DHS-Intelligence-Assessment---Rightwing-Extremism

During the 1980s to middle of the 1990s ultra right wing militia groups formed in the United States. The person who is sometimes called the "father of the militia movement" in the United States is Larry Pratt of Gun Owners of America.

“In October 1992, at Estes Park, Colorado, Pratt addressed a three-day meeting of neo-Nazis and Christian Identity adherents organized by Pete Peters in the wake of the Ruby Ridge incident.”

Pratt shared the stage with Richard Butler (Aryan Nations and the Church of Jesus Christ Christian) and Louis Beam (KKK and Arian Nation).

See Armed and Dangerous (The NRA, Militias and White Supremacists are fostering a network of right wing warriors):
http://www.rickross.com/reference/militia/militia7.html

Pat Sellers, formerly of Coatesville, sought Larry Pratt’s support in his campaign for Congress in 1996. Pat Sellers was an essential part in the election of the “Bloc of Four” in 2005.
Sellers spent the better part of the Primary Election Day in 2005 with Kurt Schenk in Coatesville’s Fourth Wards.

Here is an excerpt from an article from the Lancaster Intelligencer Journal Thursday April 11, 1996:

Lancaster Intelligencer Journal
Lancaster, PA

"House hopeful charged in fight with teenager
Coatesville school board president scuffled with daughter’s boy friend…

Sellers, an electrical worker who trails his opponent in the race, has also come under fire recently for seeking the support of Larry Pratt, a former aide to presidential candidate Pat Buchannan.

Pratt is executive director of Gun Owners of America. He left the Buchanan Campaign after the media reported on his ties to the Ku Klux Klan and the white supremacist group Aryan Nation.

Pratt has indorsed Sellers and will be the keynote speaker at a fund-raising dinner for Sellers next week.

Sellers said the allegations against Pratt are untrue and that he sought Pratt’s support because of his expertise on gun issues.”

Find the article here:
http://www.box.net/shared/7j62u1705d

Chester County and nearby areas in Pennsylvania and Maryland have had and now have an abundance of right wing extremist activity. It is party because the need for secrecy in extremist organizations makes face to face communication essential at times and Pennsylvania is centrally located on the Eastern Seaboard.

One example from the recent past is here:

Local police receive awards
Daily Local News
GINA ZOTTI , Staff Writer


"In addition to the anonymous trooper, whose name is not being released because of his undercover status at a Chester County state police barracks, West Goshen Detective Sgt. Gregory Stone and Coatesville Detective Martin Quinn were recognized for their investigative work that led to the guilty pleas or convictions of a number of violent local criminals.

'The local police and local prosecutors are and must be the first line of defense in defeating crime in Chester County," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas P. Hogan Jr. "Chester County residents are incredibly lucky to have such good police officers taking care of them on a day-to-day basis.'...

Hogan said the white supremacist cell was meeting on a regular basis in western Chester County -- in the Honey Brook and Parkesburg areas -- as well as over the border into Lancaster County for years before their arrests in 2002.

'The frightening thing about Hull is not just that he hates people because of their race and not just that he wants to be violent, but that he’s teaching people how to hate and how to be violent,' said Hogan. 'He’s telling people how to make bombs, where to put them and where they’ll do the most damage."


Find the article Here:
http://www.dailylocal.com/articles/2005/01/12/frontpage/13730113.txt

A few years ago a employee of a national campaign labeled Chester County, PA "Little Alabama"

"Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration." From- Office of Intelligence and Analysis Assessment Report

Coatesville has become a national magnet for white supremacists on the internet. Chester County has been and is now a prime area of operations for white supremacist groups and anti-government groups. The leadership of the organized groups are mostly about raising money and recruiting using racism, xenophobia and fear of government as their draw. Some of them are active in Chester County. They all have a version of the same story about a Jewish/Black conspiracy.

Some of the people that buy into this garbage may be ready to snap and become a statistic as a “Lone Wolf” domestic terrorist. If you know somebody like that call the FBI.

See these two websites for more information:

ADL Extremism in America
http://www.adl.org/learn/ext_us/default.asp?LEARN_Cat=Extremism&LEARN_SubCat=Extremism_in_America

Southern Poverty Law Center
http://www.splcenter.org/