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It must be July, because Fox News is once again hyperventilating over a racially charged non-story. One year ago, it was Glenn Beck鈥檚 crusade against Van Jones, the White House environmental advisor who, the host charged, day after day and against all available evidence, was a black nationalist using green jobs as a form of 鈥渟tealth reparations.鈥�

One year later, the channel鈥檚 marquee hosts and anchors are tag-teaming a new fear-mongering race fantasy 鈥� the idea that the New Black Panther Party, with the assistance of the Obama Administration, is currently hanging its black militant fangs directly over the arteries of the republic.

On since June 30, Fox News anchors and hosts have breathlessly discussed the marginal group and the 鈥渟candal鈥� of the Justice Department鈥檚 dismissal of a voter intimidation case filed against two of its members who were videotaped standing outside a Philadelphia poll station on Election Day 2008. (For more sober accounts of the events, read and and .)

Nobody familiar with the Fox network鈥檚 long history of crude and transparent race-baiting should be surprised by the conclusion of Abigail Thernstrom, a conservative George W. Bush appointee on the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. 鈥淭his doesn鈥檛 have to do with the Black Panthers,鈥� Thernstrom . 鈥淭his has to do with their fantasies about how they could use this issue to topple the [Obama] administration.鈥�

And what better way to do that than play sensationalized loops of militant-looking black men with zero political power or connections to the White House?

We鈥檝e seen this before. Here鈥檚 Glenn Beck announcing his fatwa against Van Jones, one year ago this week:

鈥淸Obama's] new science czar, Van Jones, is a guy that was all caught up in the Rodney King trial and he was actually arrested. He was a radical communist. 鈥β� He is still a black nationalist. He is also now your green job czar. 鈥� Your country is being hijacked. They are using things like green jobs as a front. In the context of Obama-style reparations, that's what they're doing. [Jones] is yet another community organizer. This is yet another black nationalist in the same way that Reverend Jeremiah Wright is a black nationalist. 鈥� America, you need to wake up, because this country is being transformed. It is way beyond socialism. It is into black nationalism.鈥�

None of which was true. But the campaign served its purpose.

By pounding this drum and inflaming existing (but mostly low-intensity) anxiety over the election of a black president, Beck and his FNC colleagues have steadily and deliberately helped create a new generation of hysterical, racially paranoid political activism across the country. Over the last couple of years, Hatewatch has chronicled this growth, which shows no sign of slowing down. Typical of the numerous examples of FNC-inspired literature that continues to pop up across the land is a flyer distributed for a meeting organized last week in Suches, Ga., by a self-styled 鈥淧atriot鈥� named R. Keith Martin. Among the subjects discussed at Martin鈥檚 meeting were 鈥淩ace-Based Tyranny鈥� and 鈥淥ur Black Imbroglio.鈥�

鈥淲hite racism is rare,鈥� explains the flyer, 鈥渂ut black racism is raging.鈥�

Of course, there is no evidence that this is true. Which raises the rhetorical question of where on earth Martin could possibly have gotten the idea.