Now which one is Chris Simcox?
It's a regular monkey knife fight down at the Scottsdale HQ of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, where alpha male prez Chris Simcox, aka "The Little Prince," has recently purged anywhere from three to 14 members for revolting against his iron rule and asking questions about MCDC finances.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, MCDC Deputy Executive Director Bob Wright's the leader of the failed putsch. But instead of a beer hall (you know, like back in Hitler days), Wright apparently had his ambush planned for the PHX's Clarion Hotel on May 19. There, he and the assembled conspirators (or patriots, take your pick) planned to confront the Little Prince on nine issues, the first and foremost being "Financial Accountability." As Wright wrote to Simcox on May 8, asking him to attend,
To date, there has not been a serious form of financial accountability on many levels to Chapter Leadership.We believe strongly that current accountability should be provided to each local and State chapter upon request. Current and past requests go unanswered.
In addition to Wright, the May 8 letter was signed by sixteen MCDC office holders and one minuteman. But the Little Prince fired back on May 14, excommunicating the ringleaders (four total), but allowing the others to stay after an oath of loyalty to der Fuhrer, uh, I mean Simcox. The MCDC leader wrote in a missive to the rebels,
It is the right of anyone to freely assemble. However, this letter will serve as notice to all those listed in the "CC Appendix" of Mr. Wright's May 8, 2007 communication that Bob Wright, Greg Thompson, Stacey O'Connell and Bill Irwin have been terminated for cause as volunteers and volunteer leaders within MCDC. This proposed meeting is not an MCDC sanctioned meeting and should you choose attend with the stated purpose and meeting agenda, you will be terminated by MCDC. Your written response, confirmed via facsimile sent to 281-242-9820, for MCDC Arizona Headquarters records, is required by 5 PM EST on 5/16/2007.Your response must include a statement of whether you have elected to withdraw from this proposed unsanctioned meeting and wish to continue with MCDC affiliation, or resign. If you fail to respond within this deadline to the above referenced fax number, MCDC will assume you have elected to resign all association and affiliation with Minuteman Civil Defense Corps.
The full text of all correspondence is available on the SPLC Web site. The SPLC article suggests that this discord means the MCDC is imploding. At the very least, it seems like a serious challenge to Simcox at a time when a proposed immigration reform bill in the U.S. Senate threatens the MCDC and all such anti-immigrant groups with extinction. God forbid that our elected leaders actually compromise and come up with a workable plan to address the issue. If that happens, where will anti-Mex moonhowlers like Simcox, Jim Gilchrist, Laine Lawless, Rusty Childress and all the rest go? Holy Hispanics, Batman, they might end up having to pull a J.T. Ready, and become unabashed white supremacists!
Actually, I wonder if someone as calculating as Simcox has already envisioned an end-game -- you know, an attempt to move into the mainstream (so to speak), and run for political office from some uber-troglodyte area of AZ. Of course, it didn't quite do the trick for David Duke in Louisiana (he never made it past the State House there), but the MCDC isn't exactly the Klan (at least they don't wear sheets or burn crosses). And Arizona is full of wing-nuts who'd vote for the guy, so who knows?
In any case, I called Simcox to ask him about the SPLC article, which he said he hadn't seen yet. He claimed only three people had been thrown out of the MCDC: Bob Wright, Greg Thompson, and Stacey O'Connell. Minuteman Bill Irwin? "On probation." None of the positions were salaried, according to Simcox. He dismissed the number of 14 firings given by the SPLC as being "way off, not accurate," and he insisted there would be no more terminations, that the situation had been "taken care of" at present.
Simcox pointed the finger at Wright, labeling Wright and his associates as "disgruntled," and accusing Wright of wanting to take over leadership of MCDC.
"He chose to attempt a palace coup," stated Simcox. "And he's summarily ashamed himself, embarrassed himself in the organization."
He also denied any financial impropriety on his part.
"We've dealt with that issue ad nauseam," asserted Simcox. "There's a complete 990 report[Informational Return for Not for Profit Organizations] on our Web site, along with a report from an independent audit. We did the same thing this year, we do the same thing every year. We're in complete compliance."
Not everyone seems to agree with that, including the SPLC's scribes, and the MCDC rebs, natch. There is some financial info. on MCDC's site, and as you can see, by its own admission, the MCDC pulls in a nice chunk of change per annum -- nearly half a mil. No wonder there's been an attempted "palace coup." The MCDC'll probably continue to rake in the dough, unless Congress finally imposes a solution that turns orgs like the MCDC into nativist anachronisms.
