Hate groups on the rise - it's only the economy, stupids

The economy is driving people crazy, literally, when it comes to the growing number of hate groups in this country. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a civil rights organization that monitors the activities of such groups, reports that the worsening recession, soaring public debt, bailouts for bankers, and misinformation -- death panels, really? -- over President Obama's attempts at health care reform are fueling the radicalism. Good thing South Carolina charges only $5 for these subversive groups to register!

"Already there are signs of ... violence emanating from the radical right. Since the installation of Barack Obama, rightwing extremists have murdered six law enforcement officers," says the report, according to the leftish English newspaper, the Guardian. "Racist skinheads and others have been arrested in alleged plots to assassinate the nation's first black president. One man from Brockton, Massachusetts – who told police he had learned on white supremacist websites that a genocide was under way against whites – is charged with murdering two black people and planning to kill as many Jews as possible on the day after Obama's inauguration. Most recently, a rash of individuals with anti-government, survivalist or racist views have been arrested in a series of bomb cases."

The SPLC says it hasn't seen this level of activity since the 1990s, when the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 left 168 dead, including 19 children.