Georgia Militia Plot: Feds Arrest Four Suspected
Group Members For Alleged Biological Attack Plan

From the AP via the Huffington Post news wire:

"While many are focused on the threat posed by international violent extremists, this case demonstrates that we must also remain vigilant in protecting our country from citizens within our own borders who threaten our safety and security," said U.S. Attorney Sally Quillian Yates.

Federal investigators have monitored the group since at least March 17, when a confidential source recorded a meeting of the fringe group at Thomas' two-story house in Cleveland, a small town in the mountains of north Georgia. Thomas boasted of making a "bucket list" of government employees, politicians, businessman and media members that he felt needed to be "taken out."

At the meeting, Thomas said: "There is no way for us, as militiamen, to save this country, to save Georgia, without doing something that's highly, highly illegal: Murder," according to the court records.

Roberts, who attended several meetings, mentioned in May that he knew a former U.S. Army soldier who was a "loose cannon" who may be able to help them make ricin that the group could disperse in major U.S. cities. Crump and Adams were assigned to try to obtain or make the lethal toxin, and Crump was recorded in September saying he would like to make 10 pounds of the substance.

More here, with video.

I think it's safe to say that any group known as a "militia" these days is composed of far right-wing extremists, which is appropriate because this kind of homegrown political terrorism is always of the right wing variety. Always. I mean okay, historically, some American leftists have resorted to violence in support of whatever leftist cause they were pursuing, but you have to go back at least as far as the mid 1970s, you know, the Weather Underground and the like, to find anything that even comes close to what we've been seeing since the mid 1990s with the right. Remember the "patriot" movement from back then? Remember how it produced Timothy McVeigh? These are the same people, the militia people. And it sounds like they're getting desperate.

Indeed, the resurgence of the militia movement is by and large attributed to the election of President Obama, who is a conservative Democrat, but is perceived by the right as being to the left of Chairman Mao; these militias were quiet, for the most part, when they had fellow good-old-boy George W. Bush in the White House, and while we were killing lots of brown skinned Muslims. But the Muslim killing is waning, and the President, needless to say, also has brown skin, so the "patriots" are in constant freak-out mode. And the intensity of the freak-out is only going to increase, especially as Occupy Wall Street continues to enjoy success in forcing the ruling establishment to address their issues.

That is, it's only a matter of time before some of these people manage to match or exceed the death and carnage caused by their martyr McVeigh back in 1995. We spent a long time fearing Islamic terrorist attacks after 9/11, but such an attack was always unlikely to be repeated: the real threat is right here in the US, born here, speaking English, with white skins, and certainly voting Republican.

Back in 2007 or 2008, the FBI released a report cautioning the nation about homegrown right-wing terrorists, who may or may not have military backgrounds. The usual suspects on the right wing literally howled with indignation. How could the FBI question the patriotism of our fine fighting men and women? Rush and others transmorphed a reality-based warning into a sort of treasonous anti-American document and just went on and on and on with it. But c'mon. McVeigh was ex-military, just as at least one of these guys from Georgia is. It's just a fact.

I'm pretty sure the feds are taking this shit seriously, even if the conservative punditocracy is not, which is a good thing to me personally: as a loudmouthed liberal, I'm a potential target. I mean, probably not because I don't get out much to congregate with my liberal brothers and sisters; they're the ones who should really be afraid, the ones who run their mouths in public. But it's all very frightening, at any rate.

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