Posted on 03/06/2022 7:50:39 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) — They railed against politicians, conducted military-style exercises and spoke darkly of confronting tyrants scheming to seize their guns and enslave them.
Yet historian JoEllen Vinyard says the “citizen militia” activists she got to know in the 1990s didn’t seem like the types who would abduct a governor or stage a coup.
“I don’t think they were dangerous,” said Vinyard, an Eastern Michigan University professor emeritus and author of a book about far-right movements in the state. “They reminded me of the good old boys I knew growing up in Nebraska.”
But as four men charged with conspiring to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer go on trial Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids, Vinyard and other political extremism scholars say things have changed in recent years.
In contrast to militants from before, who mostly avoided bloodshed with the horrific exception of the Oklahoma City bombing, some modern successors have taken a more radical and potentially violent turn.
“This is a different type of domestic terrorism phenomenon than we’ve faced in previous decades — completely different from anything I’ve observed,” said Javed Ali, a University of Michigan professor who served with the FBI and intelligence agencies.
They’ve kept a somewhat lower profile since the kidnapping arrests and the invasion of the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters seeking to overturn the 2020 election, said Rachel Goldwasser, a research analyst with the nonprofit Southern Poverty Law Center.
The outcome of the Michigan conspiracy trial, she said, may “indicate whether they stay in their foxholes or come out as a force in public again.”
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
SPLC-touting Panic Porn from a Partisan Media Shill and Stooge alert.
“Trust no AP content.”
That goes double when the word “Experts” is used in the headline.
Anything at this point coming from the media is bullsh##
Fake hate crime for the purpose of demonizing the right.
The ominous shift is the one that has happened in the overbearing, dictatorial government in its power grab instigated by covid and the WEF.
Translation of her story: militias have been radicalized by a nefarious group. Now who (...FBI) could that be?
Isn’t this the group of kid papers that 12 of18 were FBI informants???
At least one other person (a "person of interest" at the rental car counter). Possibly some foreign assistance or training as well. Definite contacts in the Philippines.
The US government agencies monitoring the group waited too long before rolling them up. They also got played by their informant.
Additional bonus. The blast cooked off military munitions that were never supposed to be in the building in the first place. How convenient that all the neighboring storefront surveillance videos were impounded and cannot now be located. Multiple explosions on site, readily detected by USGS seismic monitors in the State.
Massive RIFs at USGS afterwards too. The folks who mentioned the seismic recordings are gone. So are the recordings. Just a coincidence, you can be sure.
A huge cluster%^&^%^. Promotions and reassignments for everybody. Just keep it quiet. Or else.
This is raw rumor. No verification available. Make of it what you will.
Believable though!
There is simply NO divergence of thought among leftists, especially the “educated” female version, who acutely deploy hyperbole.
Utter and complete Deep State propaganda piece.
The FBI and its minions (BATF and DHS and Dept of Just Us) WERE THE INSTIGATORS and the PARTICIPANTS and the INFORMANTS.
There was no conspiracy in Michigan against the governor, were no “white supremist militia members” other than the men propped up by the FBI agitators..
“…scholars say things have changed in recent years.“
One thing which has changed is that we KNOW beyond all doubt that the elites are violating US law and the constitution every single day. That they went so far as to steal the presidency. That the Law today is whatever liberal courts say it is.
In short:: We have no Law.
This is one of those Clinton era stories that, the more you dig into it, the weirder it gets.
There were confidential informants in his group answering back to various agencies. A couple of them were later imprisoned on unrelated criminal charges (bank robbery I believe). One girl was prosecuted but the case fell apart when she produced all her pay slips to prove she was a paid informant for, I don’t remember, DEA or ATF. There were also a couple of Saddamist agents in the mix. And its apparent that one of the two guys was in contact with the guy who first bombed the World Trade Center in 1991.
But Clinton didn’t want to give the jihadis or Saddamists any credit, so that part of the story got buried. And he definitely didn’t want the fact that the plot was so thoroughly infiltrated by confidential informants, and yet they failed to stop it. So none of the informants were called as witnesses in the trial, and out of the hundred or so people who could have testified, they limited it to the four or five who had never seen McVeigh in the company of the informants or the arabs.
Like I say, its one of those Clinton era down-the-rabbit-hole and through-the-looking-glass stories that were common anywhere he and Hillary were involved. I’ve only touched the barest tip of the iceberg. Jamie Gorelick? She’s there too.
Metro Detroit area local TV news stations will defend all Democrat Party, JoeBiden administration and Deep State narratives to the last drop of everybody else’s blood.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.