This article is the fifth in an ongoing series documenting the intervention of the far-right People’s Rights network into the Klamath River Basin drought situation. You can find the earlier pieces in the series here. For more on the People’s Rights network, make sure to check out the IREHR and Montana Human Rights Network special report, Ammon’s Army: Inside the Far-Right People’s Rights Network.
People’s Rights Network to Host Writer for White Nationalist Tabloid
With the threat of an armed takeover of a Klamath Basin canal headway looming, Ammon Bundy’s group further heightens tensions in the region by featuring a writer for one of the nation’s most infamous antisemitic and white nationalist publications.
The Klamath County chapter of People’s Rights (Area 6) is scheduled to host far-right conspiracist Maggie Rose McGrath (who also goes by Donice Jansen-Smith) in Klamath Falls, Oregon on Thursday, June 17.
For years, under the name Maggie Rose McGrath, she has been the host of “The Concord Show” on Revolution Radio. McGrath opens her shows with a song from the late antisemitic country balladeer, Carl Klang, a fixture on the militia and Christian Identity circuits of the 1990s. [1]McGrath has told her audience that she’s a fan of Klang and has worked in radio alongside militia figures like Mark “from Michigan” Koernke.[2] Her show routinely features a range of far-right conspiracies and guests.
A biography of McGrath on the Concord Show page describes, “She was a volunteer and free-lance journalist for such as the ‘Stars and Stripes,’ American Free Press (formally (sic) ‘Spotlight’), as well as the Roseburg Beacon… She writes as a Free Lance journalist for the “American Free Press” and on occasion for ‘Redoubt News.’”[3]
McGrath and The Spotlight
Despite the patriotic-sounding name, The American Free Press, for which McGrath writes, is the tabloid for a once-prominent white nationalist organization with a lengthy record of spreading antisemitism.
Under both the McGrath pseudonym and the name Donice Jansen-Smith, she’s penned articles for The American Free Press. Whatever name she’s using, her ties to the antisemitic tabloid go way back. In her November 11, 2020 radio show, The Concord Show, McGrath described her long-term relationship with The Spotlight:
“And then we have my favorite; it’s been under attack for years. It’s called the American Free Press. I’ve written for them; I hope to continue to write for them. I don’t know if I’m going to continue writing for them under my aka, my nom de plume, or under my birth and married name. But either way, the American Free Press started off originally being called The Spotlight. Very Conservative. My great-grandmother and my grandmother both used to read it. It was all over my grandmother’s living room, on her couches, on the floor, everywhere. I remember picking it up when I was a teenager or in my early twenties, thinking, you know, this is interesting. And there was a lot of talk that the person who founded it was a… very far-left liberal, believed in antisemitism, was, you know, part of the neo-Nazi group, and the white skinheads, whatever, but you know what, if you really go in there, you’ll see the very things it’s being accused of, couldn’t be farther from the truth.”[4]
Listen to “Maggie Rose McGrath” describe her long-term relationship with the white nationalist American Free Press.
While McGrath’s description of American Free Press’s descent from Spotlight is somewhat correct, McGrath’s defense of Spotlight could not be further from the truth.
Founded in 1975 as the National Spotlight by Liberty Lobby leader Willis Carto, Spotlight was, in its time, the flagship publication of the burgeoning white nationalist movement. Across the 1980s and 1990s, Carto was a leading voice of white nationalist mainstreaming – the strategy of seeking to craft messages broadly acceptable to the white public to garner a mass base on which to build political power.[5]
In Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margins to the Mainstream, IREHR founder Leonard Zeskind rightly placed The Spotlight at the center of the white supremacist movement of the 1970s and 1980s and as playing a significant role in the transformation to white nationalist mainstreaming efforts. Willis Carto, founder of The Spotlight and its parent, the Liberty Lobby, was also an important figure in Holocaust Denial circles, having founded both the Institute for Historical Review and the Barnes Review.
As such, Spotlight became the launching pad for multiple projects to broaden the reach of white nationalism and antisemitism. For instance, Carto used the publication to promote the Holocaust-denying Institute for Historical Review and, in 1984, launch the Populist Party.
Initially led by Mississippi Ku Klux Klan leader Robert Weems, Carto’s Populist Party would across the 1980s and 1990s be a never-quite-successful electoral project led by a coterie of Klan leaders, national socialists, biological determinists, and Christian Identity adherents – the latter espousing that white people were the Israelites of the Bible, Jews satanic imposters and people of color a pre-Adamic and inferior “mud” race. In 1988, the Populist Party’s presidential candidate was neo-Nazi David Duke. In 1992, James “Bo” Gritz was the Populist Party candidate. Gritz became a regular at Christian Identity events and declared,
“The enemy you face today is a satanic overthrow of the United States of America, a nation under God, into USA Incorporated, with King George [Bush] as chairman of the board. And a Zionist group that would rule over us as long as Satan might be upon this earth. That is your enemy.”[6]
In 2015, American Free Press eulogized Willis Carto as “one of the greatest American patriots” and a man who has done “more than any one person, for over five decades, to draw attention to the New World Order.” The eulogy boasted that “In 1979 he founded the Institute for Historical Review.”[7]
As McGrath’s biography described, “The stories of the attacks on Ruby Ridge and in Waco; involved many she knew. This motivated her to research and ask the hard questions, that only some were waking up and asking.”[8] Spotlight provided extensive coverage the Ruby Ridge incident involving white supremacist and antisemite Randy Weaver.[9]
McGrath and the Insurrection
In an article in American Free Press, Maggie McGrath offered misinformation about the January 6 nationalist insurrection in Washington D.C. Citing several “eyewitnesses” to the day’s events, she lamented that “Most every news outlet, left or right, is twisting the facts and spinning the narrative that it was ‘Trump supporters’ that ‘stormed’ the Capitol in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6.”[10]
Conversely, McGrath uses “eyewitness” to the “Stop the Steal” event on January 6 events to argue that Donald Trump’s rhetoric had played a role in the insurrection. Instead, she continued, “Eyewitness accounts from people who were there—both Democrats and Republicans—explained what really happened,” going on to cite individuals spuriously claiming that “leftist provocateurs” and anti-fascists were responsible for the assault on the Capitol. McGrath concludes that “What we saw in D.C. was no different than what we have seen across the nation: Antifa agitators trying to incite violence.”[11]
In January, McGrath would write, “I AM Firm in my Conviction that POUS (sic) Donald J. Trump….will be our President in the very near future.”[12]
McGrath and Bundy
McGrath also has a history of supporting armed confrontations, including those involving Ammon Bundy and his family. McGrath’s Concord Show biography describes, “Maggie was a Nurse volunteer at the mine, during the ‘Sugar Pine’ Stand for Due Process; as well as a boots on the ground, reporter during the Eastern Oregon Malheur Stand where her friend ‘Levoy’ was murdered… Maggie was in Las Vegas in the courtroom, when Cliven Bundy et all [sic ], were released, and it was stated that their Constitutional Rights and due Process were violated.”[13]
Sugar Pine refers to the 2015 Oath Keepers-led mobilization at the Josephine County, Oregon-based mine of that name; Malheur to the 2016 Ammon Bundy-led armed occupation of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in Harney County, Oregon; and courtroom references the 2014 armed confrontation in Nevada over Cliven Bundy’s refusal to pay federal grazing fees.
In November 2020, McGrath would post Ammon Bundy’s statement about his two arrests at the Idaho Capitol building.[14]
“Levoy” refers to Lavoy Finicum, a participant in the Malheur occupation killed in a shootout with Oregon State Police after attempting to evade a police roadblock and appearing to reach into his pocket where he had a gun, facts often obscured by FBI misconduct during the standoff. McGrath would attend a Lavoy Finicum memorial also attended by Brand Thornton, the People’s Rights figure who wants to replace the police with far-right militias and wrote in 2020 that “I live to hear Antifa getting shot all day long.”[15]
The Concord would also promote, and McGrath and her family photograph, a Finicum-related event featuring KrisAnne Hall, the far-right “constitutionalist” whose ideas heavily influence People’s Rights and who holds the 14th, 15th, and 19th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution to be unconstitutional.[16]
In keeping with all of the above, Maggie McGrath also appeared to endorse attacks on state capitols, including weaving a racist conspiracy theory about the December 21, 2021, far-right invasion of the Oregon state capitol in Salem:
“AND NOW In DECEMBER 2020 TYRANNY IN OREGON…….. in the NAME OF ‘gov’ KATE BROWN. SHE AND HER COHORTS….do not want Transparency. They run the state like a Chinese Communist Dictatorship. CHINESE were suspected of being driven into the Parking garage of the STATE CAPITOL… But on 21 December, were encouraged by Kate Brown and her Democrat Cohorts to G.O. aggressively after American citizens who wanted to peacefully assemble, and go Into THEIR Building, THEIR Capitol to observe a Legislative process. Transparency, and honesty….or respect for Oregonians…..I think Not!… THE GOVERNORS of so many states are playing in the sand box of the Deep State, the Cabal. THEY know the Globalist (sic) are trying to “Cull the Herd” and depopulate by whatever means possible….NOW, we are dealing with a Deep State, a Globalist agenda, with most of the terrorist in London and the U.K….and throughout Europe….as well as Russia and China and Iran…-The worst are our very own Homegrown ‘Domestic’ Terrorist right here at home. Many of whom we elected or had appointed to work for and serve ‘WE THE PEOPLE.’…And then the CNN and MSNBC that only lies, spins the true narratives and bashes our President and all Freedom loving American’s. Medicare ‘For all?’ Who has paid into it? Anyone crossing the border ( especially illegally) should have medicare, Welfare….and by their illegally gotten voting…that can change the course of our state and Federal laws? The Take over of America has been going on since the late 1860’s and our “REPUBLIC” is under siege.”[17]
McGrath and Redoubt News
Redoubt News, the other publication for which McGrath writes, has its own history of bigotry. Redoubt News is the website of Idaho far-rightist Shari Dovale. Its “partner” podcast is Radio Free Redoubt. In the immediate aftermath of the March 2019 massacre of fifty people by a white nationalist in Christchurch, New Zealand, the Radio Free Redoubt broadcaster, Jack Robertson, pseudonymously known as John Jacob Schmidt, floated the idea that the shooting might have been a “false flag” conspiracy. He also declared, “We don’t want Islam in America. Islam does not belong in America, has no place in America. I’m just going to say it.”
The People’s Rights meeting is at the Elliot Street address that served as its regular event location before setting up the “Water Crisis Info Center” adjacent to Canal A. Ammon Bundy’s People’s Rights network continues to worsen the conflict in the Klamath Basin. Incendiary speakers like Maggie Rose McGrath threaten to ignite an already dangerous situation.
NOTES
[1] The track she plays, “We Want This Country Back” appeared on the 1998 album, “Extremist.” On Klang’s track, “I want to be an Extremist” he sang an homage to the Final Solution and the extermination of Jews.
“I want to be an extremist. I want to join a militia and wear camouflage. I want be an extremist and run around and sing a rable-rousing rebel song, and sympathize with the skinheads, who realize it was the Jews who did the Germans wrong. I want to be an extremist. I want to get the job done.”
Other songs by Klang include “Hang’em High,” “Evil, Filthy, Rotten, Conspiracy,” “Watch Out for Martial Law,” and an ode to Posse Comitatus killer Gordon Kahl.
[2] McGrath, Maggie Rose. “The Concord Show.” https://www.revolutionradioarchives.com/files/the-concord-show/.
[3] The Concord Show. ABOUT “Maggie Rose.” http://theconcordshow.com/about/. Accessed June 15, 2021.
[4] McGrath Maggie Rose. “The Concord Show.” November 11, 2020. https://www.revolutionradioarchives.com/files/the-concord-show/The-Concord-Show-2020-11-11.mp3.
[5] For an extensive discussion of Willis Carto’s role in the white nationalist movement, see Zeskind, Leonard. 2009. Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margins to the Mainstream. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux.
[6] Zeskind, Leonard. 2009. Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margins to the Mainstream. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux.
[7] American Free Press. Willis A. Carto, American Patriot, Dead at 89. October 30, 2015. https://americanfreepress.net/willis-a-carto-american-patriot-dead-at-89/
[8] The Concord Show. ABOUT “Maggie Rose.” http://theconcordshow.com/about/. Accessed June 15, 2021.
[9] Zeskind, Leonard. 2009. Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margins to the Mainstream. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, p. 305
[10] McGrath, Maggie Rose. Eyewitnesses Suspect Provocateurs. American Free Press. February 5, 2021. https://americanfreepress.net/eyewitnesses-suspect-provocateurs/
[11] McGrath, Maggie Rose. Eyewitnesses Suspect Provocateurs. American Free Press. February 5, 2021. https://americanfreepress.net/eyewitnesses-suspect-provocateurs/
[12] McGrath, Maggie Rose. Like a PHOENIX with its wings slightly singed…the USA and POUS TRUMP will Prevail. WOMAN from YUGOSLAVIA- Her Dire Warning to AMERICA~if we do not Heed. POUS TRUMP Can’t do it alone! The Concord Show. January 19, 2021. http://theconcordshow.com/like-a-phoenix-with-its-wings-slightly-singed-the-usa-and-pous-trump-will-prevail/
[13] McGrath, Maggie Rose. A Brief BIO of “Maggie”. The Concord Show. http://theconcordshow.com/a-bio-of-maggie/. Accessed June 15, 2021.
[14] McGrath, Maggie Rose. TRUMP SILENT RUNNING by Justin Bellucci – ( & how Patriots like the FInicum’s & Bundy’s Agree!. The Concord Show. http://theconcordshow.com/ammon-bundy-and-the-true-story-of-idaho-tyranny-in-ada-county-idaho-aug-2020/
[15] The Concord Show. Picture Gallery. http://theconcordshow.com/pictures/. Accessed June 15, 2021; The Concord Show. The Meeting with Lavoy that Never Happened. http://theconcordshow.com/the-meeting-with-lavoy-that-never-happened/. Accessed June 16, 2021.
[16] The Concord Show. Picture Gallery. http://theconcordshow.com/pictures/. Accessed June 15, 2021.
[17] McGrath, Maggie Rose. “TYRANNY in the US & in OR, CA, ID, WA & elsewhere.” The Concord Show. July 22, 2019 (misdated). http://theconcordshow.com/and-now-2019-and-beyond/.
