For those keeping score at home, Richard Mack, controversial speaker of the Kootenai County Republican Lincoln Day Dinner, is listed among the "Patriots" spotlighted by the Southern Poverty Law Center in a summer 2010 Intelligence Report. Of Mack, the SPLC says: "It seems hardly a day goes by without another Mack attack on the evils of the federal government. This one-time sheriff of a rural county in Arizona and present-day icon of the Patriot movement has parlayed his antigovernment ardor into a full-time job doing speaking gigs at county fairgrounds, high school auditoriums and hotel banquet rooms." The SPLC, which is being sued by Mack claming slander, libel & defamation, also notes that the prospective speaker hasn't been a sheriff in Arizona since 1996 and that he co-authored a book with Ruby Ridge figure Randy Weaver. More here. In a fall 2009 Intelligence Report, SPLC describes Mack as part of the Oath Keeper movement and a hero of the militia movement. You can read that report here. (Wikipedia photo of Richard Mack)

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