Like other bloggers, Jeff Baird is a working stiff who plugs away at his job by day and pursues his blogging passion at night. But with virtually no cash — just some help from some of his computer-geek friends — he has produced a news-aggregation website of startling technical sophistication within just a few months. I take a special interest in Rightside News because I gave Baird, who lives in Richmond and reads Bacon’s Rebellion, some advice early in his venture on how to hone his editorial focus. What he has accomplished on a shoestring is nothing short of remarkable.
As one might expect from the name of his publication, Rightside News takes a right-wing slant on the issues — certainly more conservative than my own. Baird has a wide range of interests, which shows in his selection of articles, but his common theme is the threat to the American way of life from uncontrolled borders. Two of his three news channels are entitled, “Border & Sovereignty” and “Jihad USA.” Drawing upon a wide range of Internet reporting and commentary, one channel highlights the phenomenon of illegal immigration and broken borders, while the second focuses on the spread of militant jihadism inside the United States. In both instances, Baird rounds up perspectives that you will rarely see displayed on the front page of your newspaper, much less on television (unless you watch Lou Dobbs).
Although Baird’s interests are global (his third news channel is “Global Jidad”), he cannot help but be interested in how the issues play out in his own back yard, Virginia. If you’d been reading Rightside News, for instance, you could known that Esam Omeish, the militant leader of the Muslim American Society whose appointment to the Virginia Commission on Immigration sparked so much controversy, spoke at an organizing conference a week ago at the University of Toledo.
While Oneish does not preach violent jihad, there are others in Virginia who do. (See “Jihadists in our Midst.”) Then there is the Jamaat ul-Fuqra (“Community of the Empoverished”), which maintains a secretive compound the back woods of Charlotte County. The Gates of Vienna blog provides one blogger’s inquiries into this community that, he alleges, “refused to let its girl children go to school, and had top members arrested and convicted by the FBI for firearms violations. “
Jihad inside the United States is a realm where the Mainstream Media has proven over more than six years since 9/11 that it has little interest in pursuing. Clearly, we don’t want to cast apersions on innocent Muslims living peacefully and lawfully in this country by launching witch hunts for jihadists. But on the other hand, we can’t let politically correct thinking blind us to the reality that home-grown terrorist movements have taken root.
It is beyond the scope of Bacon’s Rebellion to track militant jihadists. Our mission is building more prosperous, livable and sustainable regions. But Jihad inside the U.S. is read meat for Baird. If readers share Baird’s concerns, I recommend Rightside News to them. Baird wants to create original content for his website, so he is looking for contributors. Anyone willing to write and do research on the topic should feel free to contact him at
jeff@rightsidenews.com.