Throughout last summer, the left-leaning puditocracy painted the Tea Party as the not-so-thin end of a terrorist wedge. They tied the movement’s anti-government rhetoric to Second Amendment activists to the Republican Party to right wing militia groups. Armed insurrection was everywhere. Only not so much. When members of the Hutaree militia were nabbed for plotting to murder policemen, the confabulation was more or less complete. Only that one kinda petered out. The search continued, with less and less urgency. Jared Lee Loughner looked like a good poster boy for the left’s right wing kook campaign—for about five hours. And now, finally, it’s here: a genuine right-wing racist militia murder plot. upi.com reports . . .
Trial has begun in Tucson for a woman charged with first-degree murder of a man and his daughter during a home invasion meant to fund an anti-immigrant group.
Shawna Forde, 43, could face the death penalty if she is convicted . . .
Prosecutors say Forde made an alliance with drug dealers, saying she would help them rob business rivals. She allegedly planned to use the money for a vigilante group, Minuteman American Defense.
Eric Larsen, Forde’s lawyer, described her as “an exaggerator extraordinaire” who talked to other members of the Minuteman movement about big plans. She had actually been reported to the FBI, which apparently found the scheme so outlandish agents did not pursue the tip.
No question: Forde is a flake with a history of making serious shit up. Also no question: the FBI dropped the ball, and a father and his nine-year-old girl died. Put more bluntly, a white woman and her co-conspirators are accused of assassinating two members of the Spanish-speaking Flores family in an apparent case of mistaken identity and casual, unspeakable cruelty.
Literally unspeakable? We shall see if the mainstream media picks this one up and runs with it, post-Loughner.
Come to southern and central Michigan. We have all the armed militia and minuteman types you could ever want. (?) They’re always around at the flea markets, guns shows, etc with their extreme right-wing kookwear and kookware, Turner Diaries, and so forth. The Hutarees are the most recent group of semi-organized crackpots to make the papers, while this was also stomping grounds for Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols, if you recall those dudes.
Trivia: film maker and favorite right-wing bogeyman Michael Moore is from these parts (Flint) and his career was launched with these folks, in a way. A film crew blew into town to do a documentary on the Michigan Klan, and Moore, then owner-editor of the Flint Voice, a typical leftist underground newspaper (remember them?) of the period, was brought on to supply local contacts and so on. Filming a Klan gathering, the movie people had nobody who was any good at cold interviewing, so they handed Moore the microphone — and of course, he’s a natural at that sort of thing, and a career was born.
“a typical leftist underground newspaper”
Like the New York Times?
Jag Wires?
“She had actually been reported to the FBI, which apparently found the scheme so outlandish agents did not pursue the tip.”
We need background checks by those guys?
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