MRFF Founder Mikey Weinstein Takes On White Supremacist
Military Religious Freedom Foundation President Mikey Weinstein has reported white supremacist Ryan J. Murdough to law enforcement authorities after receiving an abusive email in response to the MRFF’s action against Jesus Candy being sold in military retail stores.
Identifying himself as “the Founder and President of New Hampshire Nationalists” in his email, Murdough said of his group, “We stand up for the interests of White people in New Hampshire.”
Telling Mikey Weinstein that he had heard a podcast about the MRFF’s opposition to religious-themed candy being peddled on military bases, Murdough went on to write, “Since Jews are only 2% of the U.S. population and a fraction of the U.S. military, do you think you might be happier living in Israel? Goyim are getting a bit sick and tired of Jewish behavior and we think you would be happier living there instead of the U.S.”
The anti-Semitic email was received on Tuesday, January 7th. Research on Murdough and his organization revealed that the New Hampshire Nationalists may have been behind the alleged intimidation of New Hampshire residents who attended a workforce diversity forum in 2018.
The New Hampshire Nationalists website, which has since been taken down, featured a swastika, arguably the premier symbol of hate in the world. The swastika was made up of four “T’s” and paid homage to President Donald Trump for his enabling and game changing behavior.
“Trump has enabled people to no longer be afraid to say what they think,” the swastika meme asserts. “They won’t be silenced and bullied anymore and that is refreshing. I only hope that we keep this momentum going as this is only the beginning of the retaking of America.”
Within 24 hours of receiving the email, Mikey Weinstein contacted local law enforcement authorities to report what he considered a threat.
Target of Hate
Military Religious Freedom Foundation President Mikey Weinstein does not take threats lightly. As a Jew whose family had members fall victim to Nazi Germany’s Holocaust, he takes the anti-semitism that is explicit in “Go Back to Israel” comments quite seriously.
Weinstein is military veteran who graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy, where he experienced anti-Semitism first hand.
I want to make this totally clear; neither I nor MRFF are commenting in ANY manner upon Murdough’s personal campaign for New Hampshire state elected office as that matter is completely up to his district’s electorate and does not involve MRFF in any manner whatsoever. However, I and MRFF ARE confronting and combatting this miserable wretch’s stinking and repulsive, neo-Nazi ideas of racial and genetic supremacy as embodied in his base, evil and vile anti-semitism in conjunction with his Hitlerian embrace of tyrannical white Christian nationalism. In this regard, I want to emphasize that Murdough transmitted this repugnant, anti-Jewish, hate crap to me/MRFF completely unsolicited and utterly out of the blue.
Mikey Weinstein and his family have been targeted by both hate groups and by individuals over the years, who frequently attack the MRFF founder for what they perceived as attacks against the Christian religion. Many of these attacks, such as Murdough’s, are explicitly anti-semitic, as is documented in two books of hate letters compiled by his wife, Bonnie.
Bonnie Weinstein’s latest book, When Christians Break Bad: Letters from the Insane, Inane, and ProfaneThe New Hampshire Nationalists has sold well, and has topped several categories on Amazon.com.
The letters from purported defenders of a Christian America spiked when the MRFF took on the Veterans Administration over the Manchester Veterans Administration Medical Center’s “Bible in a Box,” that triggered a federal lawsuit.
The MRFF is not anti-religious, but is firmly committed to the proposition that the Constitution of the United States creates a separation of church and state, a position upheld by federal case law. Despite being erroneously labeled an “atheist group” by Fox News, most MRFF members identify as religious.
The MRFF membership, primarily service members or veterans who resent the imposition of the views of a religious sect on them, overwhelmingly report themselves as Christian. That includes veteran Air Force pilot James Chamberlain, an MRFF member who calls himself a “devout Christian” who has sued the Department of Veterans Affairs over what he considers an unconstitutional display of a Bible at the Manchester VA Medical Center.
Mikey Weinstein has been victimized by those who have taken umbrage at the Military Religious Freedom Foundation’s stand on preserving the constitutionally mandated separation of church and state in the military and military affiliated organizations, including veterans hospitals.
In the past, the windows of his home have been shot out, and his house and grounds have been vandalized, including an incident where a beheaded animal was left on the grounds. Weinstein has 24-hour security to prevent harm being done to himself, his family and his property, which is patrolled by guard dogs.
After considering the email and doing research, he believed it was time to act. There was much evidence to consider, when assessing the seriousness of the threat.
In a November 2017 letter to the Laconia Daily Sun, Ryan J. Murdough declared his group did hate those whose actions were inimical to what they believe was the interests of “white people.” Murdoch wrote:
“I created New Hampshire Nationalists so white men and women can work together to fight for their rights, survival, and those they love. It is my hope that it continues to grow and becomes and brotherhood/sisterhood. We do not condone illegal activities and violence. We are men and women with families who work hard every day to make our lives better. We are law-abiding gun owners who are more than able and willing to defend ourselves and our families. We don’t hate anyone for the sake of hating, but we do hate those who believe white people don’t have the right to exist, preserve our identity, and a future for our children.”
New Hampshire Nationalists
According to Manchester TV station WMUR, business people and activists attending a 2018 forum promoting diversity in New Hampshire’s work force began receiving threats after the “New Hampshire Nationalists News” blog published their names and contact information. The forum was attended by New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu.
The post was denounced by Governor Sununu, a Republican, who called it “unacceptable and wrong.” Sununu created a civil rights unit in the Attorney General’s Office to battle discrimination after being elected in 2017.
The self-styled head of the white supremacist group “New Hampshire Nationalists,” Murdough first attracted public attention in 2010, when he ran for the Republican nomination for state representative District 8 in New Hampshire’s Belknap County’s in 2010. He came in last and did not advance to the general election, but has vowed to run again in 2020.
Last year, a website reported that Murdough intends to run for the office of State Representative in 2020 as a Republican.
The white nationalist contested a seat in the lower house of the the General Court, New Hampshire’s legislature, back in 2010, also as a Republican. When he declared for the Republican nomination, Murdough was serving as chairman of the New Hampshire chapter of the American Third Position (now known as the American Freedom Party), a white nationalist group. According to Wikipedia, he also was serving as political director of the neo-Nazi National Socialist American Labor Party. (Adolf Hitler’s Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei translates into English as the National Socialist Geramn Worker’s Party.)
In a 2010 interview with the Pulitzer Prize-winning Concord Monitor, Murdough expressed his racist contempt for African Americans, Asian Americans and fNative Americans, who he believes should be expelled from the United States as they are non-white, even though they are the indigenous people of the country. They were conquered, so they lose their rights, in his philosophy, which also skews towards the neo-Confederate. The Flordia-born Murdough, who attended high school in New Hampshire, believes Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president, was one of the worst as he waged war against the Confederacy.
Murdough takes issue at the “racist” label due to his beliefs, saying racism is an imprecise definition. At the time, he was working with special needs children at a youth center in Tilton, New Hampshire, and some of the kids were people of color. He did not hate the kids because of their race.
“I work directly with kids that are not white and people that are not white on a daily basis,” he was quoted. “I don’t have a problem working with them. That would be immature to be mean to someone based on skin color.”
However, skin color was very much on Murdough’s mind. In the interview, he made no secret of his anti-Semitism, claiming that Jews were not “white”
“I’ve even read some things where Jews are considered white because of their skin,” the Monitor quoted Murdough said. “Technically, they’re a different race than white people. They’re Semitic; that’s not white.”
During his 2010 run for the state legislature, the New Hampshire Republican Party denounced Murdough and distanced itself from him. Time will tell if the New Hampshire Nationalists meme “Trump has changed things permanently” will hold true in the 2020 elections, and a swastika fashioned from four “T’s” replace the Elephant as the symbol of the Grand Old Party.
