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The Newton County Sheriff's Department in Georgia is investigating flyers that North Carolina's Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) say were distributed in as many as nine states on the East Coast to "counteract Martin Luther King's birthday."

"They need to get a life, really," Georgia resident Hadiyah Abdul-Mateen, who received one of the flyers even though she is black, told WGCL. "I hope it doesn't have anything to do with the fact that President Obama was re-elected."

The racist flyer received by Abdul-Mateen urged her to join the Klan because "Our Aryan Heritage, Our American Culture, Our Christian Religion, Our White Homelands" were under attack by the so-called Zionist Occupied Government (ZOG).

Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan Imperial Wizard Chris Barker told WGCL reporter Steve Kiggins that the effort was "more of a recruitment drive" than an effort to intimidate residents, adding that he wanted to "let the neighborhood know that the Klan is there and that we're not going nowhere."

Barker claimed that his group had timed the distribution of flyers in states from Florida to New York to coincide with Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday.

"We just told our members to go out pretty much to counteract Martin Luther King's birthday, who was a known communist," he explained. "And we decided to put out Klan literature."

There is no law against KKK recruitment in Georgia, but the Newton County Sheriff's Department has urged anyone who received the flyers or felt threatened to call the department at (678) 625-1400.

(h/t: The Blaze)

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I'm not sure why 'Gun Appreciation Day' organizer Larry Ward decided it was a good idea to come on and spar with the Rev. Al Sharpton over the legacy of MLK and whether he would have approved of his upcoming event, which is scheduled just before the holiday honoring Dr. King, but all I can say is, it wasn't pretty.

Ward appeared on CNN last week and made the ridiculous statement that "slavery would not have happened if slaves were armed" and pretended that his event "honors the legacy of Dr. King." Sharpton took apart that and the rest of his arguments quite nicely during this interview.

WATCH: Gun Appreciation Day organizer insists he’s honoring MLK’s legacy, Sharpton responds:

Ward joined Rev. Al Sharpton on PoliticsNation to defend his controversial comments about King, and Sharpton argued vigorously about King’s legacy, pointing out that the civil rights leader preached non-violence and was killed by a gun. [...]

Ward justified his argument by pointing out that King once applied for and was denied a gun permit, but Sharpton added that King later said he was glad he had been turned down for the permit and that he would never carry a gun again.

Ward continued to push the issue as a civil right. “Dr.King fought for equal opportunity, and we look at cities like Chicago and New York that have a majority of minorities in it right now and those cities themselves do not grant the same access the same equal opportunity that somebody in Texas would have to defend themselves.”

Sharpton and Ward discussed Ward’s claim that slavery wouldn’t have happened if slaves could own guns. When Sharpton pointed out that armed slave rebellions of the early 19th century failed to liberate any slaves, Ward continued his argument that gun ownership is a civil right and that citizens have the right to use whatever weapons the government uses against them.

Ward also tried to distance Gun Appreciation Day from the Newtown shooting. ”This Gun Appreciation Day, just so we’re clear, is not in reaction to the shooting in Newtown,” Ward said. “It’s in reaction to the reaction.”

When asked if Gun Appreciation Day included appreciating high capacity ammunition and automatic weapons, Ward said, “Absolutely,” adding that he believes that “any ban on a semi-automatic weapon would not have changed the outcome of what happened in Newtown.”

According to ABC News, "Ward represents conservative clients through his firm, Political Media; Revolution PAC, the libertarian group launched by Ron Paul supporters, is one of his biggest." Color me not shocked given Ron Paul's history. Looks like he's doing his best to make sure he raises his profile by getting some face time in the corporate media with this stunt.

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The chairman of Gun Appreciation Day may be taking "Django Unchained" a little too seriously.

Larry Ward on Friday told CNN that he created the first annual Gun Appreciation Day just days before President Barack Obama's inauguration and the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday to "honor the legacy of Dr. King" and that slavery may never have happened in the United States if African-Americans had owned guns.

In a press release earlier this week, Ward called on gun owners to turn out "en masse at gun stores, ranges, and shows from coast to coast" on January 19. And he explained to The Blaze that the event should “strike the fear of God in the gun-grabbing politicians."

United for Change USA founder Maria Roach, who created a petition opposing Gun Appreciation Day, confronted Ward during a Friday appearance on CNN over the timing of his event.

"There are common sense, sensible ways to exercise your Second Amendment rights, and then there's theater," she explained. "I think too much of the argument and the discussion and the discourse this week is focused on just theater, ways that organizations are looking to fund raise and build their membership."

"I'd like to address the Martin Luther King Day charge," Ward replied. "I believe that Gun Appreciation Day honors the legacy of Dr. King."

He added: "The truth is, I think Martin Luther King would agree with me if he were alive today that if African Americans had been given the right to keep and bear arms from day one of the country's founding, perhaps slavery might not have been a chapter in our history. And I believe wholeheartedly that's essential to liberty."

Roach pointed out that Ward's argument was ridiculous because "slavery means that you are a possession just like a gun."

"So to say that if slaves had been armed -- that's just theater," she remarked. "There is selfish, self-serving intent in a Gun Appreciation Day. I've spoken to thousands of people, they are outraged that you would plan your event two days before an American icon -- a day that we celebrate nationally -- who was murdered, he was slain by a rifle."

"I think we need to step back and really question, what is the intent of these Gun Appreciation Days? Why not appreciate victims? Why not appeciate the Second Amendment? But Gun Appreciation Day is really a power play."

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Former White House adviser Van Jones on Monday defended recent remarks he made against "so-called libertarians" by saying, "I think we have to start punching back."

In a March speech to the Occupy movement in Los Angeles, Jones had called libertarianism a "despicable ideology."

"They say they’re Patriots but they hate everybody in America who looks like us," the former Green Jobs czar explained. "They say they love America but they hate the people, the brown folk, the gays, the lesbians, the people with piercings, ya know ya’ll."

During a Monday interview, Russia Today's Alyona Minkovski asked Jones if he had fallen into the trap of extremist rhetoric with those remarks.

"I think we have to start punching back and fighting back," he replied. "Here's the deal: If you can't take it, don't dish it out."

Noting his statement was "overly broad," Jones added, "But that's American politics. You guys should know that. American politics, we mix it up."

"I've never backed down from a fight over ideas. I'm tired and I think a lot of people on the American left are tired of a certain section of people acting like they have a monopoly on patriotism. They don't. And they're the ones who challenge our patriotism. ... I should have said the so-called libertarians who identify themselves with this ultra-right-wing camp because there are libertarians that don't have those views."

He continued: "But I've met libertarians who say Dr. Martin Luther King, Dr. King, is somebody they can't support because someone should have the right to exclude people in this country from being able to go into a restaurant, go into a hotel or go into a place of business solely based on the color of their skin."

"You can't call yourself a patriot and adopt an extreme ideology that would spit in the face of Dr. King."

Many libertarians believe that the federal government's Civil Rights Act of 1964 went too far by banning whites-only lunch counters and other discrimination by business.

"I think it’s a bad business decision to exclude anybody from your restaurant—but, at the same time, I do believe in private ownership," then-Senate candidate Rand Paul (R-KY), a libertarian, told the Louisville Courier-Journal in 2010. "In a free society, we will tolerate boorish people, who have abhorrent behavior."

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Here's more of Tavis Smiley's panel segment that I posted this portion of yesterday. Cornel West reminds us of what the spirit of Martin Luther King Jr. might be saying to President Obama and that the media's caricature of of President Obama as the fulfillment of Dr. King's dream is not true. He is A fulfillment, not THE fulfillment.

As West mentioned, King's real dream was the elimination of poverty and war.

From Democracy Now -- SPECIAL: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in His Own Words:

Today is the federal holiday that honors Dr. Martin Luther King. He was born January 15th, 1929. He was assassinated April 4, 1968, at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. He was just thirty-nine years old. While Dr. King is primarily remembered as a civil rights leader, he also championed the cause of the poor and organized the Poor People’s Campaign to address issues of economic justice. Dr. King was also a fierce critic of US foreign policy and the Vietnam War. We play his “Beyond Vietnam” speech, which he delivered at New York’s Riverside Church on April 4, 1967, as well as his last speech, “I Have Been to the Mountain Top,” that he gave on April 3, 1968, the night before he was assassinated.

Full transcript available here.

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David Gregory asked his panel to reflect on Martin Luther King's lesson of non-violent protest in the aftermath of the shootings in Arizona. Peggy Noonan couldn't resist trying to paint Dr. King as some lofty figure that was above the fray of talking about "small and petty things" although I'm not quite sure just what ideas she thought were too "small and petty" for Dr. King have concerned himself with. The Rev. Al Sharpton's response was a nice reminder of just what specific issues Dr. King did stand for -- issues we could use more people standing up for today.

GREGORY: Peggy?

NOONAN: I think Dr. King's manner as a leader, his lovely gravity and seriousness, and his adherence to talking about big things, not small things and petty things, was an unknown and per-- almost unnoticed contribution to his age. Lemme say quickly on education, I would be optimistic about it, too, because the biggest thing that has happened in the past year on education is the extraordinary success of two documentaries, Waiting for Superman and The Lottery.

The reaction to those films made leaders on both parties and leaders on the right and left come together in agreement that we can move forward on the schools if we do specific things. I think Obama should use it as his Nixon to China.

GREGORY: And-- and State of the Union, Arizona, education, these are big themes.

BROOKS: Yeah. And there's something we can all do. My-- I'm for a quota system. If you talk to a liberal, talk to a conservative. If you read a liberal, read a conservative. If you find yourself gettin' outta whack, correct it.

GREGORY: Reverend?

SHARPTON: I think that-- we must use Dr. King's message of non-violence, yes. But also remember, he had concrete goals. He used those methods to get specific civil rights bills, specific voting rights act. So I think we can't just operate 40,000 feet in the air. We have to think high and then come to concrete resolutions. Education, protecting of the unemployed, we got to be concrete. Otherwise, Dr. King would have just been a dreamer. He was more than that. He changed reality.

GREGORY: And we'll making that the last word. Thank you all very much.

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C-SPAN aired a panel discussion hosted by Tavis Smiley this week which included Cornel West, Arianna Huffington, David Frum, Dana Milbank, David Brody, John Chen, Maria Teresa Kumar and Maria Bartiromo. I didn't get to watch all of it but enjoyed the part I did catch because of moments like this one from Cornel West.

WEST: Black people's struggle has been the leaven in the democratic loaf. We look at the catastrophe and like the Blues, we responded with a smile, not revenge but justice, not hatred, but compassion. That's what Martin King's about. That's what Curtis Mayfield is about. You know what I mean? That's what John Coltrane is about. That's our tradition at our best.

But what happened during the Reagan years was the black freedom movement was confined to just another special interest group. Neo-liberal and neo-conservatives, intellectuals tried to reduce our movement to be just our self interests as if the black struggle was just for Negroes. That has never been the case. Never.

We start with Negroes, we start with black people and it relates to every citizen, poor working class, gay, lesbian and so forth, at our best. That's the legacy of Martin King. But what we get now, especially in the media is any time you talk about “the black experience” they view it as just a special interest group. You see what I mean?

It's like the corporate agenda. Is that just for corporations? Well see, in a democracy, once those labels begin to ossify; now here I agree with brother David on the end, that once they ossify then we can never communicate. That's where we've been for the last twenty five years. We can't even communicate.

So then brother Rush Limbaugh will say well, civility just wants to police me, so I can't express myself. No brother Rush, you can say what you want. We just want you to be truthful, don't be cruel and vicious and try not to lie. That's all. That's all.

But things are so polarized, they're so polarized that it's difficult for us to proceed and in a democracy you don't have high quality communications when it relates to public interests, you gonna' end up with private interests reigning and private interests have to do with might and power. Whoever has the power will define what's right. And no society can survive based on that kind of empty, empty orientation.

Here's the entire segment if anyone wants to watch more of the panel. Warning, it's three hours long if you want to watch all of it.