Friday, March 11, 2011

Our Real Domestic Terrorist Problem, Part 2

One day after GOP Rep. Peter King created a circus by asking if American Muslims were a menace or a domestic terror threat, good old-fashioned police work turned up a real conspiracy bust in Alaska involving an actual threat, not just the condemnation of an entire religion.

Militia activist Schaeffer Cox and four associates who reportedly stockpiled weapons were arrested on Thursday for allegedly conspiring to kill multiple Alaska State Troopers and a federal judge.

The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reports that the group -- Cox, Lonnie. G. Vernon and his wife Karen Vernon, as well as Coleman Barney of North Pole and Michael Anderson -- were taken into custody by state police. All five face several state charges, including "conspiracy to commit murder, conspiracy to commit kidnapping, conspiracy to commit arson, misconduct involving weapons in the third degree, hindering prosecution in the first degree and tampering with evidence," according to a press release by the Alaska State Troopers.

Only one of the individuals, Lonnie G. Vernon, has been charged on the federal level so far. He's alleged to have threatened to murder U.S. District Court Judge Ralph R. Beistline from on or about Feb. 4, continuing through Feb. 16.

U.S. Attorney Karen L. Loeffler, the top federal prosecutor in Alaska, confirmed to TPM on Thursday that Vernon was the only individual facing federal charges. "I can't really comment beyond anything else of what is publicly charged -- Mr. Vernon is charged with threatening to kill the judge and his family, and he was arrested on that. Everything else, all the other arrests, are state."

A calculated conspiracy to commit murder of a federal judge and Alaska State Troopers, possible kidnapping and arson and the weapons to get it done.  These guys?  An actual domestic terror threat.  Also, strangely not one of them is a Muslim.  What they are is a bunch of people who say that Obama isn't the President, and that the federal government is too big and too powerful, and that the rules don't apply to them because they are the true patriots.

Where have we heard that before?

Meanwhile, Republicans want you to be afraid of Muslims, because if people take too close of a look at the actual domestic terror problem in this country, they might see something the Republicans don't want you to see, and make connections they certainly don't want you to make.

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