I've personally turned in two would-be assassins of Obama to the Secret Service

[derby378]

You think I'm kidding? I have the local branch on speed-dial.

In one case, I was patched over to the national office, where the agent on duty told me that the threatening post I called in about was removed, and they didn't have a screengrab. I asked them, "Would you like a copy of mine?" And they said, "Why, sure!"

So go ahead, teenage punks and malcontents of America. Call our President every name in the book for all the good it'll do you. But if you start threatening to take his life, I'll make sure the Secret Service will be all over you like parrots at a peanut farm.

You're welcome.

[peacebird]

1. Hoo-rah! Well done!

[a geek named Bob]

2. well played, sir. Well played!

1.) Thank you serving.
2.) Thank you for helping protect the President.

[Kalidurga]

3. I've done it once...

It was an online thing. But, I was only one of many. Didn't know how many til someone posted that they had a couple dozen reports already. I am glad the internet community is on this stuff. You never know when one of these threats is serious. If someone had seen Oswald history could have been very different.

[Rose Siding]

52. So have I

The agent I spoke to hadn't seen it yet -it was within an hour of posting. He asked for the text and link. The author posted later that he'd been visited by 4 agents and boy was he pissed.

[progressoid]

57. "and boy was he pissed"

Heh heh heh.

Good.

[AnneD]

64. There are many that think....

Oswald was not the assassin but the fall guy.....

These idiots are nothing more than brain washed dupes. The real plotters don't sully their hands.

[Larry Ogg]

72. I've never met an authoritarian that could see through the official smoke and mirrors...

Adolf Hitler had it right when he said, "What luck for rulers that men do not think".

And thanks to Adolf Hitler..., hundreds of scientist, psychologist, and sociologist set out to find out why
good people fall under the spell of tyrants, and after fifty years of research, they did just that.

Now I know I can't change the way a simple mind works, so I will make a long story short by saying...

If simple minded people could think for themselves, they would be shocked to discover that, those who
do not think for themselves, have all manner of pejorative terms to use on those who do.

Further more, people who believe Oswald was the fall guy, question authority, and the people who
question authority, are the ones who are less likely to be deceived by authority.

And like 'the guy behind the mask said', "If you looking for the guilty (or brain washed dupe),
you need only to look in the mirror".

[AnneD]

75. Some of us are hardwired to be

Good little soilders, some of us are hardwired for re-education camps.

An endless war on terror as a way to curtail civil rights, an endless war on drugs to launder money property and weapons, to an endless economic depression and jobless recovery to frighten workers into obedience, and now a war on education and teachers to prevent the worker drones from thinking.

Once you unplug the telly and start thinking for yourself, the pattern becomes clear.

[leveymg]

76. Oppressive agencies of authoritarian regimes can't justify their existence without threats. So they

create most of them. And, that's nothing new but is instead an historical principle of autocratic rule, worldwide. Please, see, http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0612/S00032.htm

[AnneD]

81. Thanks for the read....

[WinkyDink]

4. Parrots like peanuts?

[bunnies]

9. News to me too!

Seems kinda odd.

[derby378]

12. Try waving a peanut in front of a mid-size parrot like an eclectus or an African grey

They will go totally Jurassic Park on that little peanut. I especially like the way their pupils contact and dilate in amazement while contemplating the destruction of that tasty morsel.

[nadinbrzezinski]

46. Peanut butter, the conures

Just discovered it.

[JohnnyRingo]

58. I'll confirm that

My Umbrella Cockatoo loves 'em. Half the fun is opening them up.
Still, "a parrot at a peanut farm"? ...I'll be using that. Thanx.

on edit:
K&R on that post.

[thucythucy]

74. I waved some in front of my Norwegian Blue

and it just stood there, as if catatonic. If I didn't know better I'd say the poor dear was nailed to his perch, but the guy at the pet shop assured me that he was simply pining for the fjords.

Remarkable bird, the Norwegian Blue.

[8 track mind]

77. Try putting 5000 volts through it...... n/t

[awoke_in_2003]

83. You have a Norwegian Blue?...

Better nail him to his perch

http://m.

This parrot wouldn't "voom" if I put 4000 volts through it

[L0oniX]

100. Make my day...

[IMG][/IMG]

My Paco.

[NMDemDist2]

17. yup! makes em as happy as a duck in the desert!

[nadinbrzezinski]

47. I take it you don't have parrots

Our two love, and I mean the go crazy ocer, macadamias.

[derby378]

91. We used to have three parakeets and a cockatiel

They were a bit small for peanuts, but oh, how our cockatiel, Piper, loved her sunflower seeds.

I can completely understand the macadamia bit, though.

[nadinbrzezinski]

97. If you ever have another one

Our vet told us, NO SUNFLOWER SEEDS. He is an avian vet, and the seeds are highly addictive to parrots. It took a while to get cookie, our nanday, off them.

[derby378]

101. I'll keep that in mind

Our cockatiel was a rescue, and she was already eating sunflower seeds when we found her. Our vet never mentioned a problem with sunflower seeds, but I'll look into it some more.

[Vincardog]

96. My Blue Front Amazons love to shell them, peal them, split them and then eat the germ. But that is

nothing like the way they love themselves some Sun Flower seeds.

[Booster]

5. Good job, derby. I'm really afraid for his very life. Teabaggers know it doesn't look good for

Rmoney's chances so......I'm glad you're on your toes.

[Berlin Expat]

80. You make a good point

about the Teabaggers and Romney's chances; I have a feeling that as we get closer to the wire, say around mid-October, and if looks increasingly that President Obama will be re-elected, hoo boy!......we're all going to see a full-on wingutocalypse unfold before our very eyes, and I wouldn't be at all surprised one jot if they suddenly decided it was time for "second amendment solutions", as they like to put it.

I have a feeling the RWNJ's are gonna go totally berserk.

[Skittles]

6. THANK YOU

don't let anyone say this kind of garbage is "normal"

[proud2BlibKansan]

7. No offense, but I doubt you're the only one doing this.

The haters are so freakin stupid.

Good job, my friend.

[regnaD kciN]

8. I had to call the Secret Service once back in the mid-'90s...

Not for a threat to the President, but because a sales clerk and customer at the sub shop where I was having lunch, not too long after OKC, were talking about how someone should bomb the Seattle Federal Building (where my wife works) like they did in Oklahoma. I made sure to get the clerk's name off her badge, then made the call after returning to work. I understand they decided to send an agent to "have a little talk" with her.

[dems_rightnow]

15. That's not exactly withon the Secret Service's role

Sounds more like an FBI thing.

[snacker]

10. Good for you!

You make me proud. Thank you.

[Egnever]

11. While I appreciate you sticking up for our president

I think this is probably mostly a colossal waste of the secret services time and resources. I mean this latest twit Angela whatever was not a credible threat whatsoever yet the SS still had to waste its time tracking her down and speaking with her.

I am not saying we shouldnt keep our eyes open for these things but at least in Angelas case it was a big waste of peoples time that would have been better spent on a credible threat than chasing down some idiot drunkard teenager talking out of her drunk butt,

[longship]

22. I dare you to say that to a Secret Service officer.

Unlike you, they take all such threats as serious, as they should. Your drunken teen posting a threat may be a daughter of a cell of well-armed conspiracy kooks who indeed are plotting the same as the drunk teen is posting. It also happens to be against federal law, rightly so.

I hope that drunken teen and her parents get the shit scared out of them by the repercussions of what they've done. After all, this Alyssa was probably parroting her parents' sentiments. I am sure that's what the Secret Service would think as well. They have no other options in these matters.

That's enough justification for a violation of federal law in this thread.

[LittleGirl]

30. exactly how it goes.

anyway, we'll probably never know, which might not be such a bad thing. Sometimes, people screw up. Huge and never do it again.

[Beartracks]

42. Wait -- so you think we SHOULD keep our eyes open...

... but then make our OWN judgment about whether or not something is going to be worth the Secret Service's time??

"Waste of time" is a hindsight assessment. Only after something has been checked out and determined to be "not credible" do you then get the luxury to say it was a waste of time. But then, it's not a waste of time because THAT IS THEIR JOB.

===============

[DearAbby]

45. The Aurora killer could have been stopped

if SOMEONE had noticed signs of strange behavior, something he said. This is their job to sort out potential threats. Our job to report them.

[Zalatix]

69. Didn't someone report him? I thought they did.

I wish that law enforcement actually did its job on all levels, so that threats to people's safety ALWAYS get intercepted like they do when it involves the President.

[nadinbrzezinski]

48. They take all threats seriously

For good reason, mind you.

[Scootaloo]

53. Two words.

John Hinkley.

No threat is too goofy, as far as the secret service is concerned.

[lapislzi]

68. Totally disagree.

While this twit may not have been a "credible" threat, EVERY instance of this loathsome behavior needs to be yanked out by the roots. It must be a matter of public knowledge that this shit will not be tolerated at any level. Because if you let one pass, then another comes along, and another. And someone, somewhere IS going to be credible one day.

It is the very same reason I call out sexist and racist "jokes" EVERY time I hear one. We do not let this shit stand. And, if you try to pull this shit, the very least you can expect (and hope for) is a smack upside the head for your stupidity.

[Zalatix]

70. Problem is the Secret Service can get tied up.

If a lot of threats get made and the Secret Service has to take time to investigate each one, they can be stretched thin. They aren't a large army.

Fortunately we don't have enough crazies to do the law enforcement version of a DDoS on them.

[iamthebandfanman]

85. Its their job.

its what they get payed for.

a waste of time making sure threats arent legit ?

btw, the reason they investigate these IS TO MAKE SURE ITS NOT A CREDIBLE THREAT..
unless they have some sorta new mind reading technology youve found out about ...

[Comrade_McKenzie]

13. I've been thinking about scouring Facebook and Twitter for people to report. nt

[ProfessionalLeftist]

14. Tweeted them about 3 idiots threatening Obama

just a bit ago on twitter. Looked to be idiot kids, but you never know. One of them has had her acct removed as many people had alerted them. Don't know about the other two.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

16. The take-away: Get a screengrab first (screen capture, PrintScreen). nt

[derby378]

18. Works like a charm EVERY SINGLE TIME

"I didn't post nuthin' about no threat." "Sir, this screengrab appears to indicate otherwise..."

[freshwest]

19. If only we'd had this back in the sixties, huh? Might have changed history for the better.

What would happen today... Doesn't even bear thinking about. 'Surveillance society' fears aside, is it any wonder, seeing how deranged some people are, so hateful?

I saw that Alyssa Douglas thing earlier. A troubled kid. But those ideas don't come out of nowhere. What struck me, and has been bugging a lot of us for a long time, is that some of us never, ever entertained such thoughts.

I got clues where this stuff is coming from, but that's unimportant. Thanks derby, for keeping up with the social media and being one of the good guys.



Oh, and Hi Agent Mike!

Just doin' our part here at DU.

[Auntie Bush]

26. How do you get a screen grab with windows...or is it different on different computers?

[Bernardo de La Paz]

27. There's usually (Shift) PrintScreen key. GIMP is free source Photoshop work-alike: http://gimp.org

[csziggy]

32. PRNT Screen button, then paste into any imaging program

Even Windows Paint will let you paste whatever image is in the clipboard into it. Save As to save the image where you can find it.

The PRNT Screen button is at the top of your keyboard in the group of keys between your alphanumeric keys and the numeric keypad. It copies whatever is on your screen to the Windows clipboard. It's very handy for a lot of things!

[pintobean]

66. The Windows Snipping Tool

is quick and easy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snipping_Tool

[backpages]

20. Cool, were you also protecting Bush

and Al Gore from threatening posts? Just curious how far your sense of civic responsibility extends.

[progressivebydesign]

25. Really? You went there? People on DU did report people regardless of the Party of their target. n/t

[backpages]

28. Well, that's what I was curious about. It's good to see someone

being proactive against this epidemic of hate and violent rhetoric.

It just seems that sometimes it's one-sided.

[truebluegreen]

34. The death threats are also one-sided.

Or haven't you noticed? Snark, not so much.

[Cha]

36. Yeah, it's "one sided" all right.. as in dumbshit

brainwashed teabaggers Threatening our President.

[8 track mind]

79. Does anyone else smell pizza? n/t

[smirkymonkey]

86. Yep!

obvious troll.

[madinmaryland]

31. If someone had threatened him, then yes. I don't typically hang out on right wing sites that

encourage things like 2nd amendment solutions and other types of violence against people. If there were anarchists that threatened violence against people (right or left) I would have reported them. There was no real social networking until just a few years back.

[CJCRANE]

61. There was no Facebook or Twitter etc.

during most of Bush's time in office.

Social networking didn't really go global and become commonplace until after the Bush era.

[Zalatix]

71. I ran into someone who once said they wished for an assassination on Dubya.

It was right after Kerry lost. I redirected that anger by telling them no, Bush should be impeached and tried for war crimes. End of issue.

With liberals that's about all you need to do to resolve that problem. They're not going to take action on that.

These anti-Obama nutballs? A lot of them are planning to take action. Some have actually been caught plotting to do so.

[obamanut2012]

89. Welcome to DU

[CitizenPatriot]

21. Eagle eyes and screengrabs:-)

well done! It helps them a lot if we have the evidence.

[riverwalker]

23. derby, you're my hero!! n/t

[malaise]

24. Love it

[fascisthunter]

29. sorry, but you bettah!

...as we say in Boston.

just in case

[Cha]

33. You Know I'm gonna

THANK YOU, DERBY!!! :notworthy:

Hey, didn't we use to have a "notworthy" icon around here?

[GoddessOfGuinness]

35. Good thinking...

I'll be sure to do a screen grab should I see something like that.

[DrewFlorida]

37. Good job, it's important to nip them in the bud, no telling which one is for real!

[derby378]

38. You guys are all freakin' awesome

Many thanks for the kudos!

Time for a late supper and then bed - I'm blockwalking tomorrow!

[davidthegnome]

39. I would do the same

I have yet though, to actually read a post like that or hear someone say something like that. I'm sure plenty do, I've definitely witnessed the rabid, barely concealed hatred within many conservatives. I'm not sure why they have such rage against Obama - I understand disagreeing with his policies, not liking him, or wanting to vote him out of office. I do not understand why someone would go so far as to threaten his life.

Well done. I think that, in the case of a threat to the life of the President... or of a threat to the life of anyone at all, we should err on the side of caution.

I think more people hated Bush than hate Obama. Yet it seems that, nonetheless, Obama is far more frequently the target of death threats. Perhaps it is the... severity of the hatred. That and the fact that those on the left tend to not be quite as inclined towards violence as a political solution.

Anyone who makes a threat against the life of another, has earned the attention of the authorities.

[gael]

40. Don't have

a screen grab, WHAT? Maybe they should quit rebuilding foreign nations, and cut the 12 billion per month for Israel. USA, USA, USA

[Kurovski]

41. "parrots at a peanut farm."

I just bird-sat a friend's parrot recently. I could see that.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

43. Thanks for doing that

[Shankapotomus]

44. Even better than a screen grab

is something called screenr.com that lets you video record whatever is on your computer screen.

[harmonicon]

49. And both of them are in prison now, right?

I mean, they weren't just people posting stupid shit on the internet, they were actual "would-be assassins," right?

I bet the Secret Service loves you.

[citizen blues]

50. THANK YOU!!!!!

[Hulk]

51. How do you make a SCREEN GRAB?

Would someone mind posting how that is done? I'd love to be on the look out also. I spend a lot of my day reading the reich-wing blogs...and there's all sorts of threatening stuff in different places.

[NutmegYankee]

54. Hit the print screen key (above backspace on normal keyboard)

Now open up Paint (start - All programs - accessories - Paint.

Once loaded, hit CTRL and V at the same time and you will paste the screen shot. Now just save it with some useful file name.

[Kennah]

56. More than likely you turned in douche bags, but you still did the right thing.

This leads me to wonder about something. The Secret Service must perform an assessment and produce a report whenever they interview someone suspected of making threats against the President. In their assessment, I would think there are some general categorizations, like "Unlikely Threat", "Likely Threat", "Very Likely Threat". But in the narrative details, one wonders about the observations they make. I'm sure none of these would ever show up in the reports.

"Dumber than navel lint"
"Likely to die from paint fumes"
"Future Darwin Award recipient"

Maybe the truth is even funnier.

[davidpdx]

59. The tweet by Alyssa Douglas seems to be the most publicized one lately

My tweet response was simple, but to the point:

@Alyssa_Douglas I hope u know making a threat against POTUS will bring u a visit from the Secret Service. Good luck w/ getting in to college

By the way her Twitter account is now gone!

Someone on Daily Kos did a diary about this as did another site:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/09/07/1128805/-THE-CHOICE-When-16-Year-Old-Alyssa-Douglas-Calls-For-The-President-s-Assassination-on-Twitter

http://pulsefeedz.com/alyssa-douglas-may-soon-become-the-most-hated-woman-in-america/

[tavalon]

60. From one whistleblower to another,

well done.

[12AngryBorneoWildmen]

62. Paraphrasing Queen Ann Rmoney, "We Love derby378"

[derby378]

93. Aw, shucks...

[Socal31]

63. This is going to be completely unnecessary

After the multi-billion dollar facility in Utah is online soon. Every single personal email, phone call, blog, forum post, social media post, deep-internet page, text message, etc will be intercepted and stored.

[JoeyT]

67. It will still be necessary.

It would take a dozen people working in shifts to read everything that's posted on DU alone.

You'd end up having to hire three fourths of the country just to read what the other quarter was saying. Programs to scan can't pick up context or coded language, so they're only marginally useful, and not even that when certain events occur. For example: Having a program scan for the word "assassin" is useful until the next "Assassin's Creed" game comes out and you get millions of false positives every day.

[RonTiger]

73. Why Threats

But why so many death threats against Obama? Secert Service must investigate the root cause of mit.

[Indpndnt]

98. You have to understand.

The people making those threats are deranged. Some are just plain ignorant. Surely, you understand that.

[ehrnst]

99. Probably the same reason people claim he a Muslim/Socialist/Kenyan born/hater of white people

Ignorant bigotry and racism.

The GOP has stirred sludge from the bottom of the septic tank in order to get back to the White House. They have FoxNews and Dinesh D'souza getting stupid racists to believe that Obama is coming to round up the white people's guns and herd them into concentration camps so that black people can take over.

A lot of people look at a black man in the White House and it disproves so many of their cherished fantasies, that they think it's not possible, and Obama isn't really an educated, centrist, Christian, Harvard Graduate, raised by his white family, and got elected by a majority. Some of their heads have exploded so much that they lash out at Obama, and plot his demise.

Some even claim that Obama's mother did interracial porn - can you imagine the sort of brain damage that believes that?

Same type that bomb clinics in the name of "Life." Or refuses to obey orders in the military because "Obama isn't a legitimate president."

[raccoon]

65. Good for you! nt

[BOG PERSON]

78. wow, way to ruin some dumb, hormonally deranged teenager's life

[davidthegnome]

84. If one of those dumb, hormonally deranged teenagers...

were to actually have a plan in mind and attempt to carry it out, I think people would kick themselves for failing to take a threat seriously.

If you make a threat against the life of the President, you should very well expect to be questioned about it by those who are interested in protecting him. Now maybe it is a dumb, hormonally deranged teenager who's life has just been ruined. Or maybe it's a potential assassin. To err on the side of caution, I think, makes a lot more sense than scoffing at threats.

[jwirr]

82. Be careful - they are crazy.

[Initech]

87. I've never seen anything like the hate and violence that the Republicans are directing at Obama.

I haven't reported anyone yet but I'm on the lookout.

[obamanut2012]

88. I turned in one this week

And, they were visited by the Secret Service, as per news reports.

[Alduin]

90. Out of curiousity...

do you (or anyone else here) ever turn in people who say they're going to kill so and so? Example, "I'm going to kill him for saying that!"

[derby378]

92. Never seen anyone do that online

And these threats were less along the lines of "Why, I oughta..." and more like "I'll slit your fucking throat." That sets off alarm bells in my head.

[obamanut2012]

94. It is against Federal law to threaten the President's life

[indepat]

95. Bravo! Our thanks for your vigilance and resolve to inform the Secret Service

of threats made by unpatriotic punks and malcontents.