\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\nIn an indictment unsealed Monday, prosecutors said the group began military-style training in the Michigan woods in 2008, learning how to shoot guns and make and set off bombs.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Shooting guns?\u00a0 You mean, like 50% of the American people do?<\/p>\n
David Brian Stone, 44, of Clayton, Mich., and one of his sons were identified as the ringleaders of the group. Stone, who was known as “Captain Hutaree,” organized the group in paramilitary fashion and members were assigned secret names, prosecutors said. Ranks ranged from “radoks” to “gunners,” according to the group’s Web site.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I’m going to guess they had a secret handshake, to help them tell who was the mole, too.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors said Stone had identified certain law enforcement officers near his home as potential targets. He and other members discussed setting off bombs at a police funeral, using a fake 911 call to lure an officer to his death, killing an officer after a traffic stop, or attacking the family of an officer, according to the indictment.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Now, when I first read that bit – that the “militia” planned to draw law enforcement into a huge ambush – I thought “this could have been a serious bunch of people”.\u00a0 That’s a classic asymmetric tactic.<\/p>\n
Why, in the hands of a ruthless, competent insurgency…<\/p>\n
After such attacks, the group allegedly planned to retreat to “rally points” protected by trip-wired explosives for a violent standoff with the law.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
…oh.\u00a0 Never mind.<\/p>\n
No confirmation on whether they planned to paint huge targets on their foreheads, or go into action with central lines already inserted for the lethal injections.<\/p>\n
Hutaree says on its Web site its name means “Christian warrior” and describes the word as part of a secret language that few are privileged to know.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Secret languages.<\/p>\n
Oddball internal rituals and ranks.<\/p>\n
Inscrutably bobbleheaded strategy.<\/p>\n
Janet Napolitano just rounded up the Scientologists.<\/p>\n
Of course, this is no laughing matter; threatening to “levy war” is a big deal.<\/p>\n
And it’s even less a laughing matter that our government feels the need to make a huge splash over Captain Hutaree and his Christian Avengers at a time when Congress’ Democratic Caucus is actively slandering dissenters with an overwrought, and curiously coordinated, campaign of finding “violence” and “threats” and “racism” under every rock (for which, somehow, no indictments exist; also evidence, other than the kind of thing every dogcatcher and sports reporter in America gets as part of the job).<\/p>\n
Fearless prediction:\u00a0 Look for a brow-furrowing “investigation” of “militias” by Ann Curry.<\/p>\n
Stat.<\/p>\n
UPDATE: <\/strong>Let me be clear, here.\u00a0 The Hutarees seem to have been amateurs – but amateurism is no defense when it comes to charges of conspiracy to murder anyone, much less cops.\u00a0 The Fort Dix Six were amateurs, and they’re in jail – justifiably so.\u00a0 Major Hassan (and every other mass-murderer, for that matter) was an amateur, but that doesn’t make his victims any less dead.<\/p>\nMy beef isn’t with the FBI or the Feds for investigating or arresting them.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It’s with the media and the Dems (pardon the redundancy), which seem to be using this episode as part of an ongoing smear of all <\/em>right-wing dissent.\u00a0 Last night the local news ran a report about “the militia and Hate Groups in the Twin Cities”; it focused on a doughy guy in a house in Apple Valley who ran a white-supremacist online bookstore.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\nAnd it’s with the Southern Guilt By Association<\/span> Poverty Law Center being taken seriously as a source on the subject again.\u00a0 It’s Janet Napolitano’s watchlist, and hordes of semi-literate leftybloggers chanting “Avalance of Violence!\u00a0 Avalanche of Violence!” like a bunch of demented macaws.<\/p>\nIt’s that there are so many smears, happening in so brief a time, so closely tied to an epochal, divisive political event.<\/p>\n
That’s <\/em>the beef.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Now, again, kids, don’t be violent.\u00a0 We’re going to get rid of this administration – or at least neuter it – at the polls.\u00a0 There’s no need for all sorts of foamy-mouthed Kossing, here. I say that because, naturally, if I don’t someone will accuse me of grabbing Grampa’s Garand and heading into the north […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[79,100],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-slander-files","category-your-papers-please"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9757"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9766,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9757\/revisions\/9766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}