National Review: FBI’s Slander of ‘Radical’ Traditionalist Catholics

It is worth recalling the Porkulus which Senate Republicans led by Mitch McConnell pushed through Congress in December. It was stuffed to the gills with pork for the “intelligence community” including a new headquarters for the FBI which will be twice the size of the Pentagon.

National Review:

“We are glad to hear that the FBI has retracted its now-notorious leaked memo on the threat of Catholics who worship at the traditional Latin Mass. The memo should never have been written. It is an embarrassment to law enforcement and reflective of serious problems in the intelligence community.

The Richmond office of the FBI prepared a memo on what it called “Radical Traditionalist Catholics” and the threat they posed, as a potential recruiting ground for ethnically motivated right-wing extremism. These “RTCs” were described in the memo as an extremist subset among those Catholics who reject the Second Vatican Council’s authority and who attend the traditional Latin Mass …

And this sloppiness is another demonstration of a persistent alienation that our intel community has from many normal features of American life. Convictions found commonly among Americans are described in this memo with lurid alarm. Millions of Protestants, Jews, Muslims, and nonbelievers who share those traditional beliefs will see themselves as potentially targeted by this memo, their views deemed by their own government as suspect, extreme, and potentially a threat. The memo itself and its leak will amplify conservative distrust of the intel community. Now is a good time for the FBI and other agencies to reverse course altogether.”

I’ve been personally labeled an “extremist” for opposing American foreign policy. I don’t support American involvement in the war in Ukraine. As an isolationist, I have never supported any of these imperial adventures in Eurasia for over twenty years now. It seems that was enough to get me put on the list. Of all the things that I have said and done, the FBI finds that the most offensive.

Note: Mitch McConnell wore a Ukraine tie to the State of the Union and attacked Joe Biden for not giving Ukraine enough weapons.