Tea-party style activism has taken some nutty turns before—the Hitler references, the Holocaust pictures. But Walter Fitzpatrick III may be about to push anti-Obama activism to new heights. On Tuesday, he plans to walk into the Monroe County courthouse in tiny Madisonville, Tennessee, and attempt to convince a local grand jury to indict the president on treason and fraud charges.
Fitzpatrick is one of those alternate-reality Americans who believe that Barack Obama is actually one Barry Soetoro, a man who is not an American citizen and thus ineligible to serve as president. Fitzpatrick claims that since March, he has been trying to get federal prosecutors in Tennessee to bring treason charges against the president. All that effort earned him, however, was a visit from the Secret Service.
But then Fitzpatrick evidently discovered that Monroe County has rather liberal rules about grand juries. In most places, only a local prosecutor can present evidence to a grand jury and request an indictment. In Monroe County, any private citizen can show up with a petition and seek an indictment. The most common initiators of such proceedings are usually victims of robberies or assaults, however, not activists trying to unseat the president.
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Still, the futility of Fitzpatrick’s enterprise hasn't deterred self-declared "patriots" across the country from rallying around the news of his testimony and planning caravans to descend on Madisonville to lend moral support. The Tennessee chapter of Sons of Liberty Riders, for instance, will be convening at the Sweetwater Comfort Inn at 7 a.m. before riding their choppers to the courthouse.
The planned rally came as a big surprise to courthouse employees. When I told one staffer about the caravan, she was shocked, noting that Madisonville was a tiny place where not much ever happens. She exclaimed, "Maybe we should tell the restaurant across the street!"
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/11/walter-fitzpatrick-birther-treason-grand-jury-monroe-countyLoon! Hope the restaurant makes some money.