ABL posted about the Waffle House terror cell, a group of senior citizen militia members who were trying to cook ricin, buy explosives and get silencers in a plot to kill a “bucket list” of federal and state government officials. The court documents said they could shoot IRS and ATF agents “all day long”. But apparently some government employees are more equal than others:
[O]ne of them, Mr. Thomas […] his wife says he’s a 30-year Navy veteran. Another man had worked for the USDA — USDA agency, and has even boasted of showing off some of his certificates he obtained from the USDA or from training certifications to the other suspects. And one of the men was a contractor for the CDC in Atlanta.
We all know Medicare isn’t a government program. Apparently the tax money that funds the CDC and the USDA, as well as Navy pensions, aren’t collected by the IRS, either.
soonergrunt
You probably wouldn’t be surprised at the number of wingers I work with who think that the only two federal agencies worth a damn are DoD and DVA.
cleek
one of my least fav songs from one my all-time fav bands.
Snarki, child of Loki
Just what do you expect, when the TeaTards have given full-throated outrage for “keep the government out of my Medicare!”
Half the population has an IQ less than 100. The GOP calls them “the base”.
Omnes Omnibus
@cleek: Fie on you. I like it. I’ll admit it isn’t Timmins best work, but it ain’t bad.
soonergrunt
Also, I don’t have video yet, but apparently the Occupy Tulsa protest was hit by Tulsa PD SWAT last night. The story that I hear is that everybody there was standing or kneeling with their hands above their heads and were sprayed with pepper spray and then attacked with batons.
I have no numbers on arrested, injuries, or otherwise at this time.
Occupy Tulsa, being in a somewhat more liberal (or, in Oklahoma, a less conservative) city, has always had a lot more participants than Occupy OKC, which varies between 20 and 50 people on site on the weekdays and up to 100 on the weekends.
Omnes Omnibus
@soonergrunt: Any ostensible reason given for the police behavior? Clearing the park so the tennis courts could be rolled, perhaps? Someone dropped a pro-biotic yoghurt container lid? Creeping fascism?
Edited slightly.
Lurking Canadian
It’s only Wasteful Government Spending if Those People get it.
Observer
I think the quote is incomplete in explaining what you’re getting at. Had to read the whole article to understand what the point was. Suggest to include the prior 2 paragraphs of the story as well.
soonergrunt
@Omnes Omnibus: a curfew that wasn’t enforced until last night, apparently.
Video 1–cop tipping head of protester up and shooting pepper spray into protester’s eyes at range of six inches. Protester has already been subdued and flex-cuffed.
Video 2–several dozen police cordon and move against the Occupy Tulsa
I haven’t viewed video 2 in its entirety, so I do not know if what has been alleged (batons, SWAT) was caught on camera but at the 6 min mark, it’s only patrol officers in street blues.
WereBear
So what it really boils down to is “keep yer government hands off my money, alcohol, tobacco and firearms.”
arguingwithsignposts
@soonergrunt: re: video 1 – holy shit that is disgusting. WTF is wrong with these people?
TheMightyTrowel
@arguingwithsignposts: seconded.
mikefromArlington
Time to start profiling senior citizens at the air ports.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
This story about the Teabagger Terrorists (R) shows the difference between the right and left. If four people who fit the Occupy Wall Street hippie profile were planning a similar attack every right wing outlet would be bleating on about how the four terrorist hippies represented every hippy involved with OWS. Could you imagine what FOX News would do with this story if the four people had dark skin?
Jay in Oregon
@mikefromArlington:
Now, let’s not be hasty; I think profiling senior citizens with extreme right-wing views will suffice.
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
‘Going Postal’ is now obsolete. The new term is ‘Going Former Public Employee’.
Wag
I have to commend the protester in the OT video for his Ghandi-esqe calm in the face of police brutality.
Non-violent protest was the key to both Ghandi and MLK’s success. I hope OWS can be as successful.
lol
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
“This just goes to show how you can’t trust those left-wing union thugs in the federal government.”
Tuffy
To explain this, I’ll refer to Craig T. Nelson, who was on foodstamps and welfare, but nobody helped him.
Fearful, resentful white people have an amazing blind spot with respect to their own dependency. They believe they are rugged bootstrappers from the moment the doctor (who received government loans at a state medical school)delivered them (in a hospital receiving 10 figures of federal money per year). And after they die, as the pallbearers carry the coffin, if they could talk they’d still insist nobody carried them.
JKE
I am surprised that these men were employed by the government or by government contractors. It was just as astounding to see the number of government employees attending the “tea baggers” astroturf protests.
How can you possibly work for something that you despise so much and supply high quality service if you don’t support the mission?
I guess criticism of those sorts of dependencies are only valid when used against those on the other side.
Tom Johnson
One of the most adamant Tea Party voices here in Louisville is a newspaper blogger who lives on a government pension. I’ve argued with him about it, and he sees no essential conflict.
RSA
@Tom Johnson:
I’ve run into people like this, too. Some of them will say that they’re only taking out of the system what they put into it (without ever having run the numbers, of course); others will say that they’re just accommodating themselves to the system that’s in place, the way that a Republican Senator might vote against a funding bill and yet still fight for his share after it gets passed.
But then there are the people who actively hate those receiving specific government benefits, even when they’re in that same group. For those folks, justifying their beliefs must be like walking through a mine field.
Julia Grey
If you’re receiving a government pension, you freaking worked for the ENEMY for a considerable length of time.
Justify THAT.
ThresherK
“Murder at the Trailer Park” sounds like the least-extravagant dinner theater mystery ever.
I invite those clever than I am to invent Clue-level weapons and suspects.
pseudonymous in nc
Someone on TPM compared them to Squidbillies. I can’t think of a better template.
As the eminent political commentator Charles Barkley astutely pointed out some years ago, the intersection of class and race is a great way to fuck over the poor — it persuades old white guys in rural Appalachia, which is mostly really fucking poor, that the government which makes them slightly less fucking poor is somehow their enemy.
ThresherK
@pseudonymous in nc: “Only two sources I trust: Glenn Beck and singin’ woodland creatures.”
cckids
@ThresherK:
Bobby Ray at the Porta-John with the broken Jim Beam bottle.
Brenda Sue behind the abandoned car with a chunk of concrete.