Last week, I mentioned that one of the more notorious wingnuts on Facebook, Everest Wilhelmsen, was actively soliciting funding for an effort to arrest and assassinate President Obama. The main vehicle for this effort is a group called "Reward for Capture of Obama." Amazingly, Facebook still refuses to delete this group. Never mind that it is not only a flagrant violation of the Facebook community standards, but is also 100,000 percent illegal.
Well, this morning I discovered that Wilhelmsen and friends now have Hillary Clinton in their sights. This morning, I hopped on Facebook to discover a surprise among my "suggested groups"--a group called "Reward for Capture of Clinton." I thought it was some kind of April Fool's joke--but it wasn't. In what appears to be an example of the Benghaaaazzzi madness taken to extremes, this group contends that the deaths of Chris Stevens and three other American diplomats amounts to murder--and that Hillary should be arrested and tried for them. It also claims that Hillary was complicit in the cover-up of Obama's "ineligibility to be President." This would be almost comical, if not for the fact that this is the same guy who argues that Obama's life is forfeit due to his supposed illegal acts, and therefore the Second Amendment gives anyone the right to kill Obama with impunity. This is also the same guy who claims that any lawmakers who refuse to declare Obama is illegally holding the presidency could themselves face assassination. If there is any difference at all between these guys and al-Qaeda, I sure don't see it.
Simply put, it is unconscionable that Facebook is continuing to allow the continued existence of groups that are actively bankrolling attempts to assassinate the president of the United States and to kidnap and possibly assassinate Hillary. It looks like the only way to get Facebook to do something is by way of public shaming. Several people on a liberal Facebook group I'm in are thinking of writing to the Young Turks about this--this sounds like something that is right up Cenk's alley. I wonder who else needs to take a look at this story besides the obvious--Rachel Maddow, Steve Kornacki, Chris Hayes and their friends at MSNBC. In the meantime, keep reporting these groups--and hope someone at Facebook has the decency to deep-six them.