Let's take a look at how there's no media blackout.

As a commenter in one of the other diaries notes, most of the articles surround his suspension. But lo! here's an article from the Lehigh Valley Morning Call from August 5th.

The Gilberton Borough Council wants their guns inventoried. And they want him to stop using their town's name on his videos and whatnot. Wow. There's the action of a town totally under siege and taken over by a Red Dawn-esque paramilitary right-wing terror force.



Gilberton officials want an inventory of embattled police Chief Mark Kessler's firearms registered in the borough's name. And they want Kessler, who was suspended last week over his profane, pro-gun YouTube videos, to scrub the Internet of any reference to his employment as Gilberton's police chief. In a letter to Kessler through his lawyer last week, Gilberton Solicitor Karen L. Domalakes said officials have been made aware that Kessler purchased many guns in the name of the borough police department.

The Morning Call is indeed fishwrap, but it's the main newspaper for almost one million people. Hardly a small-town, no-name, nobody newspaper. By the way, the local newspaper based in Pottsville has nothing at all. I'm pretty sure even they'd cover it. They've covered the Chief's other silly and ridiculous antics, like when he shot himself during an off-duty bar brawl and when he had a council member strip-searched --a case they settled for $15,000.

Perhaps there's not much more media because the story's over? The guy's a loon. He says loon things. It looks like most of his buddies have gone home, if they traveled in. He's been suspended and given that it looks like he was using the Borough's name to buy and sell guns (I am almost certain this is really a no-no, oh, and that link derives from the Associated Press and was posted today, again, some media blackout), he's going to be fired. I ratherliked John Micek's take on this(but remember? there was a media blackout.)

Let's go back to that source: Political Blind Spot. The only thing they're describing are the events surrounding the evening he was suspended. Every subsequent article from other media has stated that like in many other Pennsylvania municipalities, the state police are patrolling. I'm pretty sure that we'd have heard about a siege if agents of the evil government like the state police had entered the town (Kessler is not a state police fan, nor is he a fan of his county's elected sheriff, an individual who already has fairly limited powers).

Said site also says we're about to be rounded up and put into re-education camps, based on an army manual. I thought we'd gotten over this, fellow leftists. Other than Gitmo (and THAT is a travesty), there are no internment camps and we're not going to be herded into re-education camps.

That the diary I'm reacting to in question doesn't even include the link to the article it got its info from should have been a flag. This story plays into a narrative that may indeed be true--that there's a growing right-wing domestic terrorism problem in the United States. But it's really not true in this case. The internet has made more of this loon than he deserves. There's no reason for the National Guard to even step in, as one petition being circulated demands.

Suspect things make the reclist all the time. I'm not complaining about that--it has been the case for the 8 years I've been a member of this site. I just wanted to hopefully help set the record straight.