Catherine Bleish of the Liberty Restoration Project featured on ‘Anderson Cooper 360’

Yesterday, CNN’s Anderson Cooper marked the 15th anniversary of the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City with a segment on “the rise in rhetoric from groups on the political fringe.”

CNN’s Drew Griffen interviewed Parkville native Catherine Bleish, executive director of the local Liberty Restoration Project, which has staged protests in Kansas City against the use of red-light cameras, and most recently, against full-body scanners at the Kansas City International Airport.

Griffen described his meeting place with Bleish — Brave New Books in Austin, Texas — as “subterranean.” It’s down a set of stairs, sure, but Griffen was playing up the ominous subtext. So-called patriot groups like the LRP have been described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as potentially dangerous because of their support of gun rights, racist rhetoric and attachment to conspiracy theories.