Who Is Molotov Mitchell?

Who is Molotov Mitchell, the videographer getting attention of late for endorsing the proposed anti-gay law in Uganda?

To begin with, his real name is Jason, and during the 2008 presidential election season he produced a number of inaccurate, smear-laden anti-Obama videos (including an embrace of the Obama birth certificate conspiracy). Also, he's a part of something called the Zealot Movement, an extremist Christian movement built on the straight-edge punk lifestyle that, according to Mitchell, "avoid[s] the pitfalls of American, effeminised Christianity" and embraces "sexual purity through the practice of abstinence until marriage and the abolition of homosexuality."

"Abolition of homosexuality"? Interesting wording, that. Such an apparently homophobic attitude would seem to fit in with his declared philosophy of embracing "the lost value of extremism."

The lost value of accuracy, however, is much lower on Mitchell's agenda. Then again, the willingness to smear Obama with extreme prejudice (and extreme inaccuracy) and an obsession with Obama's birth certificate -- not to mention the homophobia -- makes him a natural fit at WorldNetDaily, which has been hosting and promoting Mitchell's videos for the past year. Since then, Mitchell has been upholding WND's tradition of lies and smears against anyone who's not a right-winger like them -- and living up to his nickname by preferring fiery, destructive vitriol over intellectual enlightenment.

In a May 2009 video, Mitchell asserted: "Did you know that Hitler wasn't right-wing? He was actually a socialist. That's what Nazi means -- national socialist. He had a lot more in common with Obama than he did with Reagan or Bush or Bush Jr." The video was accompanied by an image of Obama in a Nazi outfit.

Mitchell also repeated the right-wing talking point that "the Ku Klux Klan wasn't a bunch of Republicans in those bedsheets ... the KKK was actually founded by and comprised of racist, inbred Democrats." This falsely implies that the Democratic Party carries the same policies on race it did in the 1800s (or even the 1950s). Surely a "for the record" dude like Michell knows that's false. Perhaps Mitchell can do a follow-up video on why white segregationists like Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond switched their affiliation from Democratic to Republican in the 1960s after Democratic leaders expressed support for civil-rights legislation, or why Richard Nixon's "Southern strategy" was so successful in helping Republicans win elections. Then again, that might be too extreme even for him.

In listing a number of people who purportedly fall under the DHS report's description of "right-wing extremist," Mitchell showed a picture of the Dalai Lama, with the caption "Anti-gay bigot." In fact, the Dalai Lama's views on the subject are not so easily pigeonholed: While he has reportedly stated that "From a Buddhist point of view, [gay sex] is generally considered sexual misconduct," he did note that this rule is for Buddhists, and from society's viewpoint, homosexual relationships can be "of mutual benefit, enjoyable, and harmless."

Mitchell remains obsessed by the Obama birth certificate conspiracy. His June 2009 video repeated at least two lies regarding Obama's birth certificate, contradicting his claim that "these are the facts":

• "Obama's grandmother says that he was born in Kenya." This false claim is based on an edited transcript and translation issues, as David Wiegel reported at Slate; the full transcript shows that when Sarah Obama was asked the question more directly, "the translators ... tell him repeatedly that the president-elect was born in Hawaii."

Obama hasn't been the only target of Mitchell's smear videos. In his June 10, 2009, video, Mitchell appeared to endorse the killing of abortion doctor George Tiller, asserting he "killed babies for money" and claiming: "Two weeks ago, George Tiller was killed in a fourth-trimester abortion, a lethal lead injection." Mitchell added "You can't call someone a racist just because they disagree with you."

But that's exactly what Mitchell did one week earlier, assaulting Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor and La Raza:

Picking an anti-American racist like Sotomayor is classic Obama. I wouldn't be surprised if this broad lived in a commune with Bill Ayers at some point.

You've heard her infamous quote "A wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male."

Oooh, Obama likee! But most Democrats are racist -- that's easy. If you really want to get on Obama's good side, you've got to be part of an anti-American group. Fortunately for Sotomayor, she is a card-carrying member of the National Council of La Raza. La Raza, aka the Tan Klan. La Raza, literally meaning "The Race," is a racist, Hispanic-only organization with ties to crazy groups like Aztlan. No, not Aslan -- Aztlan, a cartel-connected organization that is literally trying to take over the American Southwest.

[...]

A La Raza member that believes in legislating from the bench. It makes me wonder: Could Obama be stacking the deck in case we ever prove he's not a natural-born citizen?

Despite calling his video "For the Record," Mitchell didn't back up his claim that Sotomayor is either "anti-American" or a "racist." And his claim that La Raza has "ties to crazy groups like Aztlan" ignores the record completely; in fact, it doesn't support Aztlan.

Again, Mitchell -- extreme dude that he is -- apparently decided his words alone weren't offensive enough. So he threw in the an image of Sotomayor next to a Klan outfit for good measure.

In his June 24, 2009, video, Mitchell went through a host of negative gay stereotypes and misleading claims. Mitchell wore a "Homosexuals Are So Gay" T-shirt through the video, which he delcared is "hate crimes compatible." He then ranted about homosexuals stealing the word "gay":

Originally, the word "gay" meant happy or joyful. So naturally, liberals hated it. Homosexuals took the word and redefined it so that it would mean homosexual intercourse. I guess they were trying to get people to associate that with flying a kite or something. Now, when somebody says, "The movie was totally gay," they don't mean that it was happy or homosexual -- they mean it was lame.

Mitchell thus takes the side of former Washington Times managing editor (and white supremacist) Francis Coombs, who claimed that the Times' longtime ban on "gay" was based on "preservation of the language."

Mitchell then claims: Look, if you want to understand the gay community, heart and soul, don't watch Will and Grace; Go to a gay parade. And don't bring the kids." Mitchell concluded, amid on-screen text stating, "Has gay culture earned our respect?": "People have to earn respect, no matter who they are. And breaking the records for drug abuse, infidelity and suicide won't make you popular. Getting the government to punish people who don't like you doesn't help either. The people I respect are the ones who left the gay lifestyle. By leaving that demographic, you may not be protected by hate-crimes legislation, but your life expectancy just jumped by 20 years."

Mitchell sourced the life expectancy claim to the International Journal of Epidemiology, but it's outdated. That study was published in 1997 and examined data "obtained for a large Canadian urban centre from 1987 to 1992," and the life expectancy differential was specifically attributed to losses "due to HIV/AIDS." But the first antiretroviral drug to treat HIV was introduced only in 1987 and was only partly effective and thus can be argued to have no significant effect on mortality rates during the time period of the study. It was not until the mid-1990s -- well outside the window of the study -- that more effective treatments became available.

In other words, Mitchell committed the lie of trying to convince you that data from 20 years ago can support a claim made today.

As if the lying wasn't enough, Mitchell scattered numerous negative stereotypical images of gays throughout his video.

When he's not editing himself, though, Mitchell really lets the vitriol fly. Mitchell posted the video of his speech at a sparsely attended anti-Obama tea party July 4, 2009, in Charlottesville, Va., and it's not pretty -- Mitchell's Obama-hate shines through in a way that not even his WorldNetDaily videos capture.

He starts his rant by telling the crowd, "I know how you feel -- like the underground." He continued:

You spend your 9-to-5 taunted by the Obama bobblehead on the new guy's desk or that stupid "Hope" poster he just put up by the copy machine. ... You huddle around your radios like refugees, like British families during the Nazi bombing raids. You coming to hope as dispensed by Rush or Sean or Mark -- or Michael Savage if you're really crazy, like me.

Mitchell then engages in his usual denigrating of people he doesn't agree with: "A handful of pencil-necked, metrosexual socialists in Washington can't possibly defeat a nation of red-blooded, God-fearing patriots." He then endorsed a military coup against Obama:

The spirit of Thomas Jefferson is alive and well in Honduras -- especially in Honduras, where their Marxist just tried to tamper with their constitution, and guess what happened? The Honduran military took that socialist dictator wannabe to the border and said, "Hasta la vista, baby. Better luck in Costa Rica." Sounds nice, doesn't it? Sounds nice to me. Time will tell.

Next, he embraced the birther conspiracy again:

I have actually personally interviewed most of the experts involved. I've spent time with Dr. Ron Polarik, who proved conclusively that that image you see on the Web that they claim is his birth certificate is actually fraudulent. This now -- listen, I'm not hearing this secondhand. I interviewed the expert. I interviewed Phil Berg -- we were actually one of the first groups to actually film him and explain the situation at the outset, so I know a little bit of what I'm talking about here. Let me give you a few facts. I think this is worth noting.

Barack Obama's grandmother -- Kenyan grandmother -- says that he was born in Kenya. His elementary school records say that he was an Indonesian at a time when they did not allow dual citizenship. He has sealed every record that could indicate his national origin -- his school records, his medical records. He traveled in and out of Pakistan when American passports were not allowed -- how did he do that? How about this -- I've got a new question that I haven't heard asked yet. Why haven't they built a monument to commemorate where he was born? Because no one can prove where he was born.

Now, I know some of you are thinking, this is crazy, this is conspiracy theory. You're wrong. This is a silver bullet. This is jiujitsu. This is the Achilles' heel of the Democratic Party, who is complicit in this. Now, I'm not trying to give you false hope here -- I'm telling you, if we push this thing, we will win. If we can prove Barack Obama is ineligible to serve, everything his pen has touched will be declared null and void -- everything.

Mitchell then unleashed the full-on Obama-hate:

But for now, we have a counterfeit king living in the White House. And I use the word "king" advisedly. Because when you have our leader who's wining and dining Michelle-my-belle in Gay Paree, when you have him taking her to Broadway, when you have Hannah Montana being paid to come into the White House to entertain his kids, when he's flying in pizza chefs for tens of thousands of dollars for one pizza while you and me have double-digit unemployment, while we're up to our necks in recession, we have a king just like our founding fathers faced.

In fact, Obama didn't pay "tens of thousands of dollars for one pizza"; as blogger Tommy Christopher pointed out, the pizza chef flew coach, his boss at the restaurant paid for his travel he was already making a business trip to Washington, and Obama himself picked up the tab, not the taxpayers.

"For the record"? Not so much. For the hate of anyone who dares to disagree with him or even perhaps just looks or acts different than him? Absolutely.

(A version of this article originally appeared at ConWebWatch.)