American Renaissance: Was Jared Lee Loughner tied to anti-immigrant group?

A possible link between Jared Lee Loughner, the primary suspect in the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, and American Renaissance, the publication of an anti-immigration group, offers potential new insights into what may have caused the 22-year-old Arizonan to carry out the attack, which killed six people and wounded more than a dozen outside a Tucson, Ariz. stripmall on Saturday.

The shooting attack gravely wounded Representative Giffords and killed her aide Gabriel Zimmerman, US District Judge John Roll, a nine-year-old girl, and three others. The hail of gunfire shocked the nation and reinvigorated scrutiny of rancor and anger-fueled debate in American politics.

On Sunday, Fox News quoted a Department of Homeland Security memo that states Mr. Loughner is "possibly linked" to American Renaissance, which DHS says promotes views that are "anti-government, anti-immigration, anti-ZOG [Zionist Occupational Government], anti-Semitic." Both Giffords and Mr. Zimmerman are Jewish.

American Renaissance is the publication of the The New Century Foundation, described by the Anti-Defamation League as a "self-styled think tank." The ADL, on its website, calls American Renaissance a "white supremacist journal and companion Website" that "promotes pseudoscientific studies that attempt to demonstrate the intellectual and cultural superiority of whites and publishes articles on the supposed decline of American society because of integrationist social policies."

The DHS memo quoted on Fox goes on to say: "Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, the target of Loughner’s firing frenzy, is the first Jewish female elected to such a high position in the US government. She was also opposite this group’s ideology when it came to immigration debate."

"When you look at Loughner's web posts, he puts himself out as half fantasy seeker and dreamer and half political philosopher, and American Renaissance, while a hate group, markets itself as a political philosophy organization," says Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, at San Bernardino.

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