Morality is not determined by the church you attend nor the faith you embrace. It is determined by the quality of your character and the positive impact you have on those you meet along your journey
Showing posts with label anti-government. Show all posts
Showing posts with label anti-government. Show all posts
A Wood County jury quickly convicted the man Friday who had threatened last fall to seize control of the state capitol and the state government of West Virginia.
The prosecution’s case centered on a conference call recorded last September where Deegan talked about his plan.
“The conversation was the actual crime itself,” Wood County Prosecutor Jason Wharton told MetroNews Friday morning. “The jury was able to hear the entirety of the conference call as well as some recordings from the regional jail and some other testimony.”
“He made statements with regard to a plan to essentially bring many individuals to the state capitol in Charleston in an attempt to overtake the offices in that complex,” Wharton said.
Deegan told those on the conference call they should shoot those who offered any resistance.
Deegan is accused of laying out his overthrow plans in a series of conference calls -- one of them as recently as Sept. 14 -- where he called on like-minded armed extremists to grab their firearms and assist him in an attempt to overthrow state government, according to court documents.
His intended plan was to remove several state government leaders from their offices, charge them with treason and replace them with sovereign citizens. After apparently setting up a sovereign citizen-style court system, those found guilty of treason would be put to death.
Gee who could have guessed that this might be the result of constant anti-government rhetoric pouring out of right wing radio and conservative news outlets 24 hours a day?
This is why we respect this guy... his guts and gumption in expressing what many Americans recognize as a foundational problem resulting in an insolvent, less sovereign nation - and his commitment to taking action.
I appreciate him taking responsibility "...to blow the whistle on these problems so Americans are aware of them."
Thank you, Senator Ben Sasse.
Now your first instinct after reading that Sarah Palin is impressed with somebody, should be "Oh what stupid thing did this Sasse guy do to deserve that?"
And if it was you have good instincts.
Palin's Facebook page then links to an article on the defunct Breitbart news site, and as it turns out THIS is what Ben "Soon to be out of a job" Sasse said during his maiden speech on the floor of the Senate:
If the Senate isn’t going to be the most important venue for addressing our biggest national problems, where is that venue? Where should the people look for the long-term national prioritization? Or, to ask it of ourselves, would anything be lost if the Senate didn’t exist? Again, this a thought experiment, so let me be emphatically clear: I think a great deal would be lost if the federal government didn’t have a Senate, but game out with me the question of ‘Why?’ What precisely would be lost if we had only a House of Representatives, rather than both bodies? The growth of the administrative state, the fourth branch of government, is increasingly hollowing out the Article I branch, the legislature, and many in Congress have been complicit in this hollowing out of our own powers. So would anything really be lost if we doubled-down on Woodrow Wilson’s impulses and inclinations toward administrative efficiency by removing much of the clunky-ness of legislative process?
Now Ben Sasse is a former university president and has a Master's degree in Philosophy, so you would think he might know better than to introduce a topic as easily misrepresented as this one.
First he expects folks like Sarah Palin to understand what a "thought experiment" is when they really do not understand the concept of "thinking."
Second he is essentially attacking the very institution that he campaigned long and hard to join, which is never a good thing.
And thirdly, WTF is his point really?
Does he really think that the Congress, now overrun with moronic teabaggers, should be allowed to run amok without the checks and balances provided by the Senate?
What am I saying, this is a guy endorsed by Sarah Palin, of course he wants the government to fail.
I don't know what I was I thinking.
By the way Salon has decided that Palin would be a shoo-in as moderator of the GOP debates:
Sarah Palin – This one seems so obvious I have to think someone has suggested it already. Palin’s proclivity for speaking in word salad that even the most powerful Star Trek universal translator likely couldn’t make sense of is well known. Anything she says would likely be a stream of babble that would trail off into nothing, leaving the candidates free to just opine about whatever talking points they would have spouted even if asked a coherent question.
They have a point. If you wanted somebody who would not challenge the candidates with facts, or embarrass them by demonstrating a superior intellect, Sarah Palin would be the obvious choice.
God could you just imagine?
Two hours of Sarah Palin asking ignorant questions and the candidates trying to make sense of them, or just giving up and proselytizing to the flock instead? It would the TV equivalent of receiving a colonoscopy from a doctor who just found out you were banging his wife.
Authorities arrested a 47-year-old Utah man Thursday that they say had been plotting to kill police officers and blow up a police station with the hope the attacks would cause an uprising against the government.
FBI agents and police in Tremonton arrested John Huggins on Thursday on a charge of possessing an unregistered destructive device, U.S. Attorney's Office of Utah spokeswoman Melodie Rydalch said in a statement Friday evening.
Huggins built an improvised explosive device and possessed explosive materials and instructions for making bombs, FBI Special Agent Steven Cadiz said in court documents.
In February, a "concerned citizen" contacted Tremonton police to report Huggins threatened to blow up a Bible study group and had buried bombs around the city of Ogden, Cadiz said.
Police later determined that information was incorrect, but Huggins had threatened to blow up the Tremonton Police Department and wanted to assassinate two officers before the bombing, according to court records. He also planned to blow up bridges and other infrastructure to prevent emergency responders from being able to help, the court records state.
Huggins stated he believed the attacks would cause the community to rise up against the government, investigators said.
And much like the rhetoric that was heard during the Bundy Ranch standoff.
It is becoming increasingly obvious that this country has much less to fear from Islamic terrorists from abroad, than it does from the homegrown Right Wing domestic terrorists being urged on by the likes of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Sarah Palin.
Sure we can track down and arrest AL-Qaeda members in Afghanistan for promoting terrorism, yet this far more dangerous threat is allowed to walk around free fomenting dangerous anti-government tactics and spreading harmful conspiracy theories wherever they go.
According to KVUE-TV, the state of Texas, under Gov. Rick Perry, cut state funding for the volunteer fire departments that protect most of the state from wildfires.
Firefighters have actually been dipping into their own pockets to fight fires.
Volunteer departments that were already facing financial strain had their funding cut from $30 million to $7 million.
There are 879 volunteer fire departments in Texas; 114 are paid fire departments, while 187 departments are a combination of volunteer and paid.
So just to clarify what is taking place in Texas: Rick Perry decides to cut the volunteer firefighting budget by 75% (What could go wrong with that?). The state is soon subjected to one of the worst droughts in American history. This results in perfect conditions to allow numerous devastating fires to ravage the countryside. Having no idea how to solve this crisis Governor Perry pleads with his fellow Texans to pray for rain. Then when THAT does not work (Go figure!), he asks one of the very Federal programs he is always railing against, FEMA, to come to Texas and rescue his state from his huge screw up.
Does THAT about cover it?
And THIS is the guy that the Republicans are seriously considering running for President?
A pernicious story line, recited on talk radio, in state legislatures and in some quarters of Washington, says that government can’t do anything right. Government is the problem, Ronald Reagan famously said. And a vast political and business alliance works furiously to make his declaration a self-fulfilling prophecy by underfunding vital programs and disparaging public employees.
But when disaster strikes, we expect government to work. We need it to work. Last week, it did. Police, firefighters and medics made their way through the dark and the rain Sunday night to rescue the trapped and aid the wounded. Kansas City had 50 firefighters en route within hours. Its police department sent communications specialists, tactical teams, a search-and-rescue dog and a traffic enforcement squad.
Other cities sent first-responder teams. They worked in the rain that first day, searching the rubble for survivors and for bodies. In a cruel sign that nature hadn’t quite finished its mayhem, two police officers from Riverside were felled by a lightning strike. Officer Jeff Taylor was gravely injured. Like the city he was helping, he will have a long road to recovery.
Throughout the week, personnel from the state of Missouri poured into Joplin. The National Guard and the Highway Patrol got there quickly. Officials with expertise in emergency management, insurance, mental health, care of senior citizens, land use and power grids followed.
The often-maligned Federal Emergency Management Agency got a team to Joplin within hours of the tornado to set up telecommunications and help with logistics and support.
This in no way diminishes the vital role of the Red Cross and other nonprofit agencies, and of businesses, in responding to the disaster. But public employees and government agencies make up the underpinning of the recovery effort.
The need for government help in Joplin will continue for years. Streets must be replaced. Schools and a hospital must be rebuilt. Families will need temporary housing.
It is easy to wax poetic about trimming government spending, and cutting costs to taxpayers, but when disaster strikes, or our elderly loved ones suffer a health crisis, aren't we ALL suddenly fans of government programs like FEMA, Medicare, and even the National Guard?
That is why the Republican rhetoric is simply blown away in the wind when you look out the window and see this bearing down on you.
I don't know about the rest of you, but after seeing the images of the devastation left in the wake of these massive tornadoes, I am one hundred percent on support of having my taxes raised to pay for the programs that help my fellow Americans.
But hey if we are going to get serious about cutting government costs, I know a couple of wars I would gladly see come to an end. Just a thought.
Cox had originally been arrested in March 2010 for approaching a police officer and failing to disclose that he was carrying a concealed gun. When Cox did not show up for a Feb. 14 court appearance, a judge issued the arrest warrant and Cox went into hiding with his wife and child.
Cox and his associates had been plotting in the days before the scheduled court hearing, according to prosecutors. The militia leader detailed his plot at a meeting on Feb. 12 that was secretly recorded by the FBI.
Cox wanted militia members to respond with violence if authorities tried to arrest him on the misdemeanor warrant, the charging documents say. He allegedly told the militia members, "I know you're ready to die, but you have to be ready to kill," according to an FBI recording referred to in the criminal complaint.
"At that February 12th meeting COX specifically unveiled his "241" (two for one) plan which called for his militia to respond to attempts to arrest or kill him by responding against state court or law enforcement targets with twice the force and consequences as happened to him or his family," according to the criminal complaint. "If he was arrested, two state targets would be "arrested" (kidnapped). If he was killed, two state targets would be killed. If his house was taken, two state target houses would be burned."
(To the left is a picture of Coleman Barney, one of Shaeffer Cox's co-conspirators, standing with an AK-47 while dressed as a colonial soldier as he listens to the speaker during the Second Amendment March on Monday, April 19, 2010, in Veterans Memorial Park in Fairbanks, AK.)
During the time that Cox and his wife were hiding from the law, they were staying in the house of fellow militia member, and tax evader Lonni Vernon's house. Unsurprisingly Vernon is just as unhinged as Shaeffer Cox.
On Feb. 17, Lonnie and Karen Vernon met with a militia member at a restaurant, according to court documents. Lonnie said he didn't agree with Cox when Cox said the militia was not strong enough to carry out Plan 241. They talked about having two-man teams create diversions, while other two-man teams carried out the attacks.
According to the complaint, "The plan would then have the tactical teams going to the target's houses, cutting the power, shooting the inhabitants as they come out to check on their power; then the team would kick the target's residence's doors in, kill everybody inside and set the house on fire. Then the team would lay in hiding and take out the initial responding officer before moving on to the next target."
Karen Vernon is alleged to have said, "It's war now," and that survivors of the shootings would "cook like in an oven."
As I have written before these groups are extraordinarily dangerous in their belief that they have the right to engage in guerrilla military tactics to "defend" themselves against the Federal government, or in Shaeffer's case at least, ANY law enforcement that they feel infringes on their personal rights as "sovereigns." In other words they are not accountable, nor do they recognize, any authority other than God and the original Constitution of the United States. You know before it became watered down with all of those pesky Amendments.
This same FU point of view toward the Federal government is prevalent up here and can be found not only in the Alaska Militia, but also the so-called 2nd Amendment Task Force, the Alaska Independence Party (You know, the one Todd belonged to, and to which Sarah delivered that address for their convention in 2008.), and many other splinter groups scattered across Alaska as well.
And if you are thinking that this kind of "We don't have to follow the rules" rhetoric sounds familiar, than congratulations because you have made the obvious connection between these dangerous nutjobs and their defacto leader (Though shhh, nobody is supposed to know that.).
And if you think I am trying a little to hard to tie the Grizzled Mama to this bunch of dangerous anti-American criminals, than just allow Schaeffer Cox himself tell you of their affiliation. (The pertinent part starts at the 2:50 mark.)
For those who have believed that I have gone after Sarah Palin so hard out of a personal dislike, or simple ideological differences, you could not be more mistaken. You see I know the kind of people, and anti-American politics, that Sarah Palin represents. These anti-government thugs have helped her every step of the way in her career and hoped that with a pretty face as the symbol of their ideology that they could finally get control of this country.
(Leaders of the AIP)Chryson and Stoll viewed Palin's ascendancy as a vehicle for their own political ambitions. "She got support from these guys," Stein remarked. "I think smart politicians never utter those kind of radical things, but they let other people do it for them. I never recall Sarah saying she supported the militia or taking a public stand like that. But these guys were definitely behind Sarah, thinking she was the more conservative choice."
"They worked behind the scenes," said Stein. "I think they had a lot of influence in terms of helping with the back-scatter negative campaigning."
But the TRUE face of their idealogy is represented in the video right above these words. And that face belongs to Shaeffer Cox.
In fact the Teabaggers, who Sarah Palin helped to create, are really just a cleaned up version of the AIP and miltia groups from Alaska that have now found a voice on the national stage. Just like those who first supported Sarah Palin always hoped would some day come to fruition.
