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You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / Militia Raid Update

Militia Raid Update

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Does anyone have any insight as to what is going on here:

A Christian militia group was a target of at least one of a series of weekend raids the FBI conducted in Indiana, Michigan and Ohio, a Michigan militia leader says.

The FBI said Sunday that it had conducted raids in the three states, resulting in at least three arrests. Federal warrants were sealed, but a federal law enforcement official speaking on condition of anonymity said some of those arrested face gun charges and officials are pursuing other suspects. Some of the suspects were expected in court Monday.

Details seem really scarce for this sort of thing.

Reader Interactions

90Comments

  1. 1.

    pharniel

    no clue, it was all over the news saturday night (i live about 3 miles from the ‘command post’ at the wash. co. sherif’s office) and a friend was down the road from one of the raids.

    the only notices I can see are from alex jones types on the youtubes, and the comments are all ‘keep your powder dry’ and ‘the revolution begins on a sunday WOLVERINES!”

  6. 6.

    Doctor Science

    Not to mention the mystery of their names/ranks:

    RANKS:
    RADOK [RD]
    BORAMANDER [BM]
    ZULIF [ZL]
    ARKON [AK]
    GOLD RIFLEMAN [GR]
    SILVER RIFLEMAN [SR]
    BRONZE RIFLEMAN [BR]
    LUKORE [LK]
    MASTER GUNNER [MG]
    SENIOR GUNNER [SG]
    GUNNER [GN]

    As one of the commenters at Language Log says, this sounds more like a “Treehouse” organization than a military one.

  8. 8.

    pharniel

    @stuckinred:

    Uncle tedly moved to texas or something because we wouldn’t let him sodomize the bear after putting it into a steel trap or something like that.

  9. 9.

    El Cid

    I think there won’t be too many details until the actual law enforcement forces give details.

    On the “ranks”, these idiot militias are basically cos-play for milnerds, and that’s why they’re all full of imaginary high ranking d-bags.

  11. 11.

    Some Guy

    I don’t know, but I am very curious as well. I suspect, and this is not based on any knowledge, just the news reporting everyone else reads, is that no matter what the reason, rightwing extremists will take this as a sign of Obama beginning an end game against freedom.

    The timing after the HCR vote and the threats toward legislators creates a context that will simply not be transcended regardless. The moment will decide the meaning I fear.

    Then again, maybe there has been the kind of uptick in threats since HCR that made the FBI move. If the bricks and threats are the tip of the iceberg, how knows.

    The whole situation with rightwing extremism is so volatile. I am aghast.

  12. 12.

    El Cid

    @Some Guy: Oh, I’m sure today on right wing scream radio it will all by OMG THIS IS OBAMA MARTIAL LAW AGAINST GOOD CHRISTIANS EXERCISING 2ND AMENDMENT RIGHTS TO PROTECT MUSLIMS!

  13. 13.

    pharniel

    seems to be a group called Hutaree
    the annarbor.com article notes that the SE michigan molitia met with some of them, and told them to turn themselves in.
    the Hutaree people said ‘that’s not an option’ and left, and the toledo article notes that local ‘law abiding’ militia’s are cooperating with law enforcement.

    which means that these Hutaree guys must be into some really crazy shit or the Feds have got ALOT on the other militias.

  15. 15.

    jeffreyw

    Pure uniformed speculation, I suspect they were infiltrated by law enforcement. Heard reports they were making and distributing pipe bombs. Probably some full auto conversions to some long guns. What usually tips the Feds to act is either 1) they have the evidence they need to bring in the leaders, 2) they were afraid the “plot” or whatever was nearing the kickoff, or 3) the undercover cops were discovered to be cops and not true blue ‘mericuns.

  16. 16.

    dmsilev

    It’s obviously the Kenyan Usurper clamping down on the Heroic Patriotic Courageous Militias who dared threaten his imposition of Sharia law.

    Duh.

    -dms

  18. 18.

    mr. whipple

    which means that these Hutaree guys must be into some really crazy shit or the Feds have got ALOT on the other militias.

    That’s actually pretty funny when one militia groups says, ‘those doods are nutz.’

  20. 20.

    Cacti

    Since it’s an end-times religious militia…

    I’ll go with weapons violations + kiddie diddling

  21. 21.

    jeffreyw

    Subway Blasts Kill Dozens in Moscow
    MOSCOW — Female suicide bombers set off huge explosions during rush hour Monday morning in two subway stations in central Moscow, officials said, killing at least 37 people and raising fears that the Muslim insurgency in southern Russia was once again being brought to the country’s heart. More than 100 people were injured.

  23. 23.

    Bob

    @Some Guy:

    …no matter what the reason, rightwing extremists will take this as a sign of Obama beginning an end game against freedom.

    No doubt. At next week’s Tea Party, this will be the topic of the key note address.

  26. 26.

    pharniel

    the toledo blade article notes that they were getting ready to blow up mosques, and the wdiv (channel 4, nbc affiliate, ok news) has actual quotes from the mi militia helping the feds.

    Lackomar said none of the raids focused on his group, which is affiliated with the Michigan Militia, a larger militia umbrella group. Lackomar said about eight to 10 members of Hutaree trained with SMVM twice in the past three years. SMVM holds monthly training sessions focusing on survival training and shooting practice, Lackomar said.

    “There’s a big difference in philosophy between what they do and what we do,” he said. “They’re gearing up to fight alongside Jesus against the forces of Satan.”

  29. 29.

    Slappy White

    funny, just last night i was reading the calc risk boards and someone mentioned hutaroo as an example of prime crazy. lo and behold the next day they get raided

  31. 31.

    Brick Oven Bill

    Sun Tzu teaches us that the third dangerous fault in a General is a hasty temper, which can be provoked by insults.

    What we have here is an Administration that is shaken. We observe it now poking at its political opponents.

  32. 32.

    Ash Can

    The fact that the law enforcement folks aren’t saying much leads me to believe this operation is ongoing, and that more busts are forthcoming. The Chicago Tribune is reporting this morning that someone from northwest Indiana was arrested too. It will be interesting to see where and how this all ends up.

    Regardless, though, the wingnuts will be wailing about how this is worse than Waco and Ruby Ridge combined, and that This Means War (TM). It would be comical if these people weren’t as dangerous as they are.

    ETA: Looks like BoB got drunk for breakfast again.

  33. 33.

    Cacti

    @pharniel:

    the toledo blade article notes that they were getting ready to blow up mosques, and the wdiv (channel 4, nbc affiliate, ok news) has actual quotes from the mi militia helping the feds.

    A militia was plotting to blow something up?

    No way.

  34. 34.

    pharniel

    bob sure does like the pie.

    as a side note, here in SE MI the social scene is a bit..incestous.

    You’re gonna run into somebody that knows sombody, so to use the MI MIlitia arn’t crazy clenis haters, there someone you know’s grad dad, or uncle or crazy bother…so I guess even in hippieville ann arbor we don’t tend to think of them as a ‘problem’ so much as a great way to keep crazy cousin bobby out of trouble and off the diag preeching the paulian way

  36. 36.

    soonergrunt

    @Cacti: That’s about right.
    This will be just like the90s when those nuts will be pissed off about how the government could’ve left the millenialist kiddie fuckers alone because they weren’t doing anything really wrong.

  37. 37.

    4tehlulz

    BoB’s feeling the heat. How’s it feel to be considered beyond the pale by the fucking Michigan Militia?

  38. 38.

    Dave Fud

    BoB teaches us that stupidity is contagious, and that we should use the pie filter for his comments.

    What we have here is a failure to integrate reality with fantasy. These armed cults have nothing on BoB.

  39. 39.

    Cacti

    I think the question that’s really burning everyone’s mind is…

    Who is the cult leader, and how many 12 year old concubines does he have?

    It’s not really a first rate cult unless the leader gets his pick of the sixth graders.

  41. 41.

    Remember November

    American AQ….all we need is the video of them in masks running thru obstacle courses.

  45. 45.

    Remember November

    @Brick Oven Bill: No BoB, it’s always going to happen when a Dem is President- homegrown terrorists always try to test the Administration just like foreign ones do.

    They call it patriotism, I call it fundamentalist self-justification for being violent neanderthals.

  49. 49.

    Jay in Oregon

    Details seem really scarce for this sort of thing.

    Well, they’re white and (ostensibly) Christian.

    If they were scary Mooslim furriners, the news on Sunday night have had names, pictures, and hours of running commentary by the pointy heads about how we are growing soft on the War on Terror.

  50. 50.

    Hart Williams

    er, Little Theodore and his ex-fm deejay wife live outside Waco, Texas (if that isn’t kreepy enuf), but Little Theodore still maintains his “game preserve” in Michigan, where he sells hunting tours (guaranteeing you a kill, I think) so that he can teach you and your kids the “Manly Art” of murdering semi-tame animals when he’s not touring in support of crappy cruddy — even by Little Theodore’s low standards — CDs.

    (Seriously, if you thought “Fred Bear” was several sandwiches short of a picnic basket … it’s Missa Solemnis compared to his more recent, er, sonic excursions. Love Grenade makes a fine drink coaster, I understand.)

    Meantime, his ex-FM-deejay ghost writes his “columns” and his occasional book, while Little Theodore substitutes big rifles and killing “game” for some self-perceived shortage in the generative equipment.

    So hell yes he could have been there. If so, he’d undoubtedly have been LG (Love Gunner).

  52. 52.

    stuckinred

    @Hart Williams:

    Come along if you care
    Come along if you dare
    Take a ride to the land inside of your mind
    Beyond the seas of thought
    Beyond the realm of what
    Across the streams of hopes and dreams
    Where things are really not

  53. 53.

    beltane

    @Violet: The names appear to be a redneck approximation of the names of Viking warlords. They look more Slavic-sounding to me, but not being a nut what do I know.

  55. 55.

    GregB

    I am convinced these nugget heads would love nothing more than to live in a nation like Somalia where they could drive around in pick-ups with heavy guns mounted on the beds.

    They could shoot up everything and rape and pillage to their hearts content.

  56. 56.

    Jon H

    @Doctor Science: “As one of the commenters at Language Log says, this sounds more like a “Treehouse” organization than a military one.”

    It’s like their own little World of Warcraft.

    I guess their moms must have taken away their PCs.

  58. 58.

    Andy

    @Doctor Science:

    this sounds more like a “Treehouse” organization than a military one.

    Yes, although I don’t recall Spanky, Alfalfa, Buckwheat et al. distributing pipe bombs.

  59. 59.

    SGEW

    I’m just glad that there have been no casualties. Hopefully, this speaks well of both the professionalism of the Federal agencies involved and the not-quite-Waco-crazy nature of the current militia movement.

    All in all, a modestly encouraging piece of news. So far. I hope.

  63. 63.

    Woodrowfan

    whenever I see this type of story my first thought is “pipe bombs.” Or large purchases of fertilizer and some rental trucks.

  65. 65.

    someguy

    Teabaggers with guns waitin’ for gettin’ ready to make war on the antichrist. Fightin’ the ZOG, the Moose Limbs, and teh brown peepul, even if you won’t. Oh yeah, and doin’ it fer jebus.

    Nothin’ to see here folks. Just some good upstanding Republican protestors. Move along.

  66. 66.

    Camchuck

    Caught a blurb on the local news that said the charges would be related to “pipe bombs”.

  68. 68.

    Camchuck

    mlive.com

    Two law enforcement officials tell The Associated Press that members of the group in the Midwest had planned multiple attacks on police officers or other law enforcement personnel as a way of acting out their hatred for the government.

  69. 69.

    The Moar You Know

    Pharniel nailed it; the Michigan Militia guy was also quoted on another news outlet as saying that they had trained with the Hutaree guys until some unspecified “federal firearms violations” had come to light last year.

  70. 70.

    Gravenstone

    Didn’t read the other comments so this may be repeated, but I see one major point.

    This isn’t the political leak factory that was the Bush DoJ. The warrants are sealed and will remain so until such time as the FBI and their supporting agencies are satisfied that they have everyone they were looking for. This is known as progress.

    Until then, I expect details to be scant, as it damned well should be. Of course, this feeds into the winger paranoia of “Big Brother and the Black (Laughing) Helicopters”, but so fucking what?

  72. 72.

    KPR

    The Detroit News has the PDF of the indictment up on their website. The criminal charges include seditious conspiracy, attempts to use weapons of mass destruction, and further explosives and firearms charges.

    The government claims that this group was planning to kill one or more members of the Michigan law enforcement community as a catalyst for sparking the “big one” eagerly awaited by these militia types. In particular, they accuse these people of planning to attack the funeral of the law enforcement member with IEDs, which would draw an even bigger response from around the country and provide all these fat, camo clad buffoons with their realized wet dreams.

    My God. I was looking at the website of the guy who was encouraging bricks through windows (sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com) and these people are just waiting for an excuse to “mobilize.”

  73. 73.

    pharniel

    @Morbo:

    You know damn well we already had that war, and we won.
    that’s why toledo is part of the buckeye state.

  75. 75.

    David

    TPM has the indictment — it’s very scary and serious:

    “The indictment further alleges that the Hutaree planned to kill an unidentified member of local law enforcement and then attack the law enforcement officers who gather in Michigan for the funeral. According to the plan, the Hutaree would attack law enforcement vehicles during the funeral procession with Improvised Explosive Devices with Explosively Formed Projectiles, which, according to the indictment, constitute weapons of mass destruction.”

    http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/03/feds_release_details_in_hutaree_arrests.php?ref=fpblg

  78. 78.

    RareSanity

    @Trinity:

    The AP is reporting that the arrests were linked to a plot to kill police.

    From the article:

    In one late 2008 post on the group’s forum page, a member writes that “ATF searching local FFL for info on Hutaree gun purchases. All members are advised to be locked and loaded, things may turn hot real quick here.”

    Sounds like a bunch of cowards to me. They were warned to be “locked and loaded”. But, when the authorities actually showed up, they went quietly like the chicken hawks everyone knows they are.

  79. 79.

    flukebucket

    Damn.

    Were they hoping the flush the anti-christ out by killing police officers?

    What a crazy buncha fuckers.

  80. 80.

    ricky

    All I can say is I am glad these young men in Michigan were not exposed to the Texas State Board of Education Curriculum.

    There is no MI in TX.

  81. 81.

    Tim

    Nope, just hoping to incite a revolution.

    I assume that’s where the seditious conspiracy charge comes from.

  82. 82.

    Hart Williams

    @ stuckinred

    I have the lp … Amboy Dukes, Journey to the … etc.

    Even have the ’70s stuff when the term ‘Motor City Madman’ was s’posed to be ironic.

    Since I’m not a big lyrics aficionado (I like rock and roll, so i generally ignore them, i.e. Yes), I’m not sure what you’re trying to say: he was once a musician and not a complete nutbag joke?

    Agreed.

    That the “Nuge” finally went off the deep end of a self-inflicted acid trip that he predicted in ’67? Sure.

    That nobody would be surprised if he DID turn out to be one of the wackjobs picked up in the FBI sweep?

    ‘Nuff said.

    “The modern day composer refuses to die.”

  84. 84.

    RareSanity

    OT:

    Made my daily visit to Reddit and saw this post:

    I’m a registered republican, but the majority of my party is insane. This is, in my point of view, due to public exposure of talking heads that drive extreme opinions. Are there any republican scholars or talking heads that aren’t insane?

    I said to myself, “This ought to be interesting”, and when to the comments. First (highest rated) comment:

    Yes, they are called moderate democrats.

    Further down the comment thread, Sarah Palin came up, turns out this was the poster’s “Schiavo Moment”:

    I watched the RNC the night Palin was chosen as the VP. I was perplexed because I didn’t know who she was. Quick wiki search showed what she had done, and I immediately saw it as a bad move. I understand their mentality to choose a woman to get that voter [sic], but she was the wrong representative of that demographic at the wrong time. She barely had a political career and her misunderstanding of some key things really drove the knife home.
    On top of her most current actions, its safe to say she is a [sic] Paris Hilton of politics.

    I say, just keep the Republicans in front of cameras or microphones, the rest will take care of itself.

  85. 85.

    protected static

    Interesting side note: the Sipsey St Irregulars dude hates the Hutaree because they’re white supremacists. There’s a chat log floating around where he mocks them for being listed approvingly in some neo-Confederate web directory.

  86. 86.

    Jon H

    @Remember November: “More like CoD…without the X Boxes.”

    It was their silly rank names that led me to WoW.

    Also, does anyone else think their name, Huttaree, is a mangling (or de-Africanization) of Hatari, as in the John Wayne movie? (Supposedly it’s Swahili for “danger”.)

  89. 89.

    etalanon

    @Morbo:

    The Michigan Militia of course is only waiting for the day when we can take back Toledo from those damn Buckeyes.

    Does that mean they’d also have to give the UP back? No way! Toledo ain’t worth it.

    Mebbe worth a half dozen pasties but if they’re homemade…no way.

  90. 90.

    Larry

    What’s going on here is a combination of ultra-right wing comspiracy theory coupled with a pseudo-Christian mis-reading of scripture. And there’s some racial hatred mixed in as well.

    Their idea is that the Antichrist will either soon be here or has arrived already, and that the government is the Antichrist’s servant.

    So, in their twisted logic, it follows that the government must be destroyed in order for Christ to reign supreme. They were going to start by killing all the policeman they could to get this final Armageddon started.

    It’s easy to call this “stupid” or “nutty,” but it’s too serious for that.

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