Homegrown Terrorists Caught in a Plot to Assassinate President Obama
…. in addition to planning and carrying out lots of other mayhem. I haven’t heard this on the news, but saw it online. Information still seems to be coming in, but the short story is that Army soldiers at Ft. Stewart in Georgia bought about $87K in guns and bomb-making materials, killed two people who looked like they were going to talk about the group and were working out a plan to overthrow the government and assassinate President Obama:
The prosecutor said the militia group had big plans. It plotted to take over Fort Stewart by seizing its ammunition control point and talked of bombing the Forsyth Park fountain in nearby Savannah, she said. In Washington state, she added, the group plotted to bomb a dam and poison the state’s apple crop. Ultimately, prosecutors said, the militia’s goal was to overthrow the government and assassinate the president.
More from The Atlantic who has been watching this all afternoonwhich includes some photos and some of the local TV footage.
And the inestimable Elon James White considers this in the long term effort by some extremist conservatives to always view President Obama as the “Other” — the non-American, non-Christian who has no legitimate claim to the office:
When you keep yelling how you want your country back and how the sitting president isn’t really American — how he may not even have a legitimate claim to the office — can you be that surprised when extremists contort this into plans of madness? Ex-military-personnel groups — one of which just so happens to include a Birther — have created campaigns accusing the president of leaking sensitive materials for personal gain while putting soldiers’ lives at risk. This is the state of politics today.
Post up any new information you see in the comments.
Am wondering how this is playing — if at all — on TV.
This is beyond disturbing, it is terrifying.
The networks are busy covering the postponed RNC convention.
Interesting. I would guess that these terrorists aren’t Muslim enough to make this all that newsworthy.
This is the first I’m hearing about it.
I think part of the reason that this is not getting much play is that it came out in testimony at a murder trial with all the suspects already in custody for murdering another soldier and his girlfriend, so it is not like there was some dramatic arrest scene.
And the 87K was apparently spent by one guy who had a 500K insurance payout from the death of his wife/girlfriend, which doesn’t minimize what they bought, but also doesn’t have these guys sitting around raising money.
Glad it is under control, if guilty, I am glad they are caught. There is no place for this kind of behavior in a free society with elections.
I don’t watch Newsroom (because I’m too cheap to pay for HBO) but saw this last night. Hits home.
http://front.moveon.org/what-we-already-knew-about-the-tea-party-and-the-newsroom-finally-said-out-loud/?rc=dtwcap
These are just the nut jobs who got caught. How many more do you think are out there? Several of the civil rights organizations do a pretty good job of tracking these idiots. If you really want to get scared, contact them and ask for a list of the right wing armed groups who pose a threat to everyone who isn’t right of Adolph Hitler.