FBI warns extremist letters may encourage violence

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: San Jose Mercury News, from Associated Press

FBI warns extremist letters may encourage violence

By Eileen Sullivan and Devlin Barrett
Associated Press

Posted: 04/02/2010 05:59:19 AM PDT
Updated: 04/02/2010 05:59:20 AM PDT

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal intelligence note is warning police that an anti-government group's call to remove dozens of sitting governors may encourage others to act out violently.

A group that calls itself the Guardians of the free Republics wants to "restore America" by peacefully dismantling parts of the government, according to its Web site.

As of Wednesday, more than 30 governors had received letters demanding they leave office within three days or they will be removed, according to an internal intelligence note by the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, which was obtained by The Associated Press.

Investigators do not see threats of violence in the group's message, but fear the broad call for removing top state officials could inspire others to act out violently.


Read more: http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_14807565

[ET Awful]

1. Guardians of the Free Republics . . . hmmmm . . . . .

Kinda makes you think their maybe might sorta be a connection somehow doesn't it?

[Historic NY]

2. Well you can't say they have been embolden by the GOP & Sarah....

The chickens have come home to roost. I predict the FBI is going to be very busy. Nice going since more precious resources than usual will be eaten up chasing down these domestic terrorists that the whipped up.

[CLANG]

8. Hire more FBI agents - jobs bill!

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. Rim Job formed a new group, eh?

Will this one also provide porta potties?

[Mudoria]

4. Extremist group demands governors resign

Source: CNN

A domestic extremist group has sent letters to more than 30 U.S. governors demanding they resign, the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI said in an intelligence note.

The note, dated Monday, said the letters told the governors to vacate their posts within three days.

DHS and the FBI said there do not appear to be credible or immediate threats of violence attached to the letters.



Read more: http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/04/02/extremist-group-demands-governors-resign/?hpt=T2

---

And the nutjobs keep coming out of the woodwork.

[Joanne98]

5. Here's a video of all the commands they're making.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=385&topic_id=449349&mesg_id=449349

[Bette Noir]

7. Thanks for the link to the video.

After viewing it, it is clear that this group has declared that it is taking over the government, from top to bottom. Sedition, or mass delusion?

Demanding that the governors take "an oath to uphold the Constitution"-- I do not think this word means what they think it means. The Constitution outlines the government we have-- to overthrow it by violence would be the most un-Constitutional act imaginable.

Besides, the governors probably already have taken an oath to uphold the Constitution. I had to take one, to get a job as a temporary lab tech in the summer between finishing my pre-reqs and starting nursing school. Oaths to uphold the Constitution are not uncommon.

Apparently, understanding what the Constitution means IS uncommon.

[SteveG]

40. An oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States

is in the oath, every Governor takes when he or she is sworn into office.

[CLANG]

6. I'm sure they'll "get right on that".

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[Javaman]

10. And if they don't? nt

[Mike K]

45. Really.

DHS and the FBI said there do not appear to be credible or immediate threats of violence attached to the letters

Then why the publicity? This is the same kind of "Be Afraid" nonsense the Bush Administration was fond of disseminating.

[The Magistrate]

46. What An Odd Attitude To Take In This Matter, Sir....

This is a reference to a legal standard, under which there is not at present cause for arrest of the persons disseminating the letters. It is not a prediction regarding actual potential for violence, or attempts at it.

[Kablooie]

52. Whatever happened to campaigns to vote them out of office?

They want to throw out our whole system so they can get their way immediately.

[liberal N proud]

9. The FBI needs to include Beck and Palin and any other threats

made recently against Senators and Representatives.

All of them are dangerous and inciting the crazies to the point of violence.

The whole country has gone mad.

[The Backlash Cometh]

11. The FBI is finally catching on. good.

[47of74]

12. The FBI ought to send that letter that one Marine wrote to these nut jobs

Remind them just what they will face if they try anything.

[fascisthunter]

13. these folks have thrown their democratic rights out the window

the moment they threaten government officials with violence. The reason for democracy and our political system, is to iron out differences without the need for violence... once they issue a threat, they give up all their rights as citizens and become political terrorists.

[sabra]

14. Anti-Government "Guardians" Target Governors (FBI on Alert for Violence)

Source: CBS News/AP

Group Sends Letters to More than 30 Governors Calling for Their Ouster; FBI on Alert for Violence

(CBS/ AP) Updated 9:45 a.m. EDT

The FBI is warning police across the country that an anti-government group's call to remove governors from office could provoke violence by others.

A group that calls itself the Guardians of the free Republics wants to "restore America" by peacefully dismantling parts of the government, according to its Web site.

As of Wednesday, more than 30 governors had received letters saying if they don't leave office within three days they will be removed, according to an internal intelligence note by the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. The note was obtained by The Associated Press.

For now, the letters stand as merely a citizens' uprising movement trying to put pressure on the administration, reports CBS News correspondent Bob Orr.

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/04/02/national/main6356489.shtml?tag=stack

---

[Bitwit1234]

15. If they can't steal the election they promote violence to take it over

what a bunch of christian and americans these jerks are. I used little letters because the type of Christians and Americans these people are don't deserve it to be capitalized.

[Gin]

16. I consider that letter to be threatening...what will happen in 3 days?

[Posteritatis]

27. Considering that deadline passed yesterday.. (nt)

[Rozlee]

35. In 3 days? Um, Easter? Bunch of dumb bunnies.

I'm so sick of these beer guts running all over the place with their guns and acting so macho. Talking about FEMA concentration camps. A stay in a camp for a month or two would be good for most of them. It might get some of them to the point where they would be thin enough to see their feet when they look down.

[kestrel91316]

17. Let me guess - the 30 targeted governors are ALL Dems?

The FBI needs to follow the trail of evidence back to who is really behind this: the Republican Party and associated christofascists.

The Handmaid's Tale is their playbook.

[MindPilot]

19. No. Jindal and Gibbons got letters too.

Are they too liberal? If that's the case wonder why Arnie didn't get one?

This is getting a little scary.

[Bette Noir]

20. The associated video (linked elsewhere) shows that they intended

to notify all 50 governors to "swear an oath to uphold the Constitution" or be deposed for treason.

Their intent seems to be to overthrow the entire government, top to bottom.

My hope is that they don't kill anyone before they're arrested.

[atreides1]

21. McDonnell of Virginia got one also

A letter and a fax.

[Dogtown]

23. The Handmaids Tale could be prophetic.

I do believe that.

[caseymoz]

25. They're not going to overthrow the government.

Sooner or later, the Obama administration will be forced to take off the kid gloves with these goons. My question is, how long are they going to pretend this isn't a problem?

[Dogtown]

28. I wasn't suggesting it would happen this afternoon.

And, no, I don't think this particular batch is capable.


I do see a very real possible future of a balkanized America with a theocracy in the south.

[caseymoz]

33. I foresaw the same thing until I realized

That the South receives too many benefits from the Federal government to make it anything other bluster, and bait for the ignorant constituency. Texas, even, would look like a third-world country without the Federal government. The leadership, anybody acquainted with the state governments in the South, knows it. The only reason they can keep their state taxes low is because of all the grants and other help they receive from the federal government.

A rebellion is more likely to take place in New York or California, who receive far less back for their states than what they provide in federal tax revenue.

Yes, I find it more likely that those states could either secede, or perhaps the South actually being expelled from the Union.

[Dogtown]

37. I understand your position

and agree with you, in the short run.

The threat I perceive would result from the downward spiral of excessive debt/privatization/rotting infrastructure/corporatism we now seem to be riding. I think in time the economy *could* become so depressed that the federal government could cease to function with any competence. By the time that could occur, the increasing separation of parties and factions, most especially the fundamentalist Christian sects, could very well supplant, rather than overthrow the government, resulting in balkanization.

I'll point to the current impoverishment of state and local governments as models. Across the country, local governments have cut services to the bone and laid off or furloughed staff. We seem to be in an economic upswing, but we only have to look back to the Bush dynasty to see how fragile that is.

Another indicator is the state of our military. Just before the Soviet collapse, their military was worn to rust and scraps from adventuring in the same theatre we now occupy. I'm not sure how much more the equipment and personnel of our military can withstand; hence, I'm unsure they would be very effective in preventing a future fragmentation.



I'm no prophet, nor am I educated in government or politics. I do know, however, that if you repeat the same experiment with the same variables you can predict a result. We're currently performing the same warfare experiment (Afghanistan) as the Soviets. Predictably, the results seem the same, so far.

The future for the American Empire seems to be the same as that for all former empires.

[caseymoz]

41. Human beings are mortal, and so are the nation-states we create.

Betting that the United States eventually won't last is about the surest bet you could make. However, trends could always change course. The things we all think will kill it in the near future might not last. Moreover, it's a neat, lucky trick if you could guess what exactly will govern the US geographical region.

I think at close to 230-years-old the US is already venerable by historical standards.

[Odin2005]

44. I dunno. An empire centered on Rome existed from 241BC to 410AD.

That's 650 years, and the similarities between the US and the Roman Republic are scary.

[caseymoz]

47. Actually, the Roman empire lasted over 2,000 years.

If you take it from the founding of Rome to the final fall of Byzantium to the Ottoman Turks. But how fast did all the States around it rise and fall?

Many more nations don't last out a century. Look at the great Soviet Union.

Now, maybe with vastly better communications, we've given nations longer lives. Maybe the borders of the world have never been this stable.

[Odin2005]

50. The USSR was just Russia under another name.

And Russia is still around, though it has shrunk.

The Byzantines called themselves "Romans", but it was a Greek empire, not an Italian-based one centered on Rome. IMO The Classical "Roman Empire" ceased to exist over the century following the death of Justinian, Byzantium after the Slav and Arab invasions was effective just another post-Roman successor-state despite they still calling themselves Romans.

Names are not everything. Just to nitpick.

[caseymoz]

51. Not quite true for the USSR.

The entire government apparatus collapsed. The whole method of governing passed away. It's guiding cause and ideology are gone. It was led in its most significant phase by a Georgian, who turned it more nationalist after WWII because he thought that was the best way to keep the Soviet Union together. Many of the people in power were not ethnically Russian. When you say it shrank, that included losing territories that Imperial Russia had held for hundreds of years and that the Soviet Union inherited or re-conquered. It's founder, Lenin, was ethnically quite mixed. Mordovian, Kalmyk, Jewish (cf. Blank family), Volgan German, Swedish, and possibly others.

The same process occurred when Imperial Russia fell. The entire state apparatus was dissolved. But the Russia today also has little resemblance to the Russia in 1910. Not least of which is its secular government.

So the Byzantiums by the fifteenth century were nothing like the Romans of 700 b.c. But that, of course, is only if you want to count the Roman empire in that way.

You could usually count the end of a nation in several different ways. But nation states tend to have longer lives than human beings, but they are not immortal.

[caseymoz]

38. No, in the article, it says the FBI thinks every governor is going to receive one.

This idiots have just declared war against the US. Guess who's going to win?

[Ozymanithrax]

18. More right-wing conservative terrorism...

The signs and portents continue to show dark times ahead for the Republic.

[caseymoz]

24. Yeah, and where's the apology from Republicans who complained about the report?

I'd like to at least hear one say that the Homeland Security report was absolutely correct in its assessment.

[47of74]

22. Reich wing nut jobs

[glinda]

29. here is their Group link

http://www.guardiansofthefreerepublics.com/front-page.html

[Jefferson23]

30. For crying out loud, these people are something else:

From their website:

We debated how best to accomplish our goals. Could we reasonably expect to restore Biblical law to a devoutly secular population that cherishes television, promiscuity, physical debasement and electronic devices with religious fervor, and that suffers the warped belief that advertisements for personal hygiene products and Viagra in our homes does not debase our children? Could we re-educate millions of Americans who have been programmed to believe that the ban against government interference in matters of worship somehow excludes piety in government? Could we convey consciousness regarding matters of Law to a society that breaths “Cops” and “Law & Order” and worships the bar associations “legal” system franchise where once the law of the Land reigned supreme? Eventually we concluded that “agreeing with thine enemy” was the ONLY prayerful way to bring the Lord to the people. The Restore America Plan capitalizes on THEIR belief system as a vehicle for relieving corporate tyranny. In due time, the higher goal of salvaging the souls of mankind can be addressed.

The one common belief that ties the American population together is faith in the Constitution. Many Americans are willing to fight and die in its defense even as they blindly trade notes of debt issued by a foreign bank. We decided that restoring, in principle, the Constitutional institutions through December 19, 1860 was the approach MOST LIKELY TO SUCCEED (and that's the bottom line, failure being unacceptable). We rejected restoration to 1933, the Articles of Confederation or ancient times as being insufficient (1933) or unworkable, at least in terms of achieving our goals rather than proclaiming our patriot knowledge of history. Of course we recognize that the Constitution was the method for imposing on the States the obligations rejected by the colonies to pay the Revolutionary War debts to the Bank of England. Notwithstanding, we can relieve the suffering of the sovereign People by agreeing with those who choose to glorify a man-made document.

And finally, we constructed “The unanimous Declaration of the sovereign People of the united States of America to restore and reinhabit the free American Republics” to be a shining covenant with the Creator. His charging the People with dominion over all the earth in the Book of Genesis is declared in the very first paragraph as the foundation for the restoration. In so doing, the Declaration is established in history as a genuine covenant with the Creator in honor of the Law.

Thus, once the process was grounded in the original law venue, the need to introduce the ethereal concepts of counties, districts and “tens” was circumvented, all of those entities being derived from Scripture. Why introduce concepts that are likely to generate resistance? At every step, The Restore America Plan is mindful of our goals. Is our goal to relieve oppression or re-educate America to patriot doctrine?

WE HAVE THE HIGHEST REGARD FOR THOSE OF YOU TRYING TO CARVE OUT SUCH LIVES ON THE county, but we believe that most patriots will be well served by a simultaneous restoration of their sovereign rights rather than fighting the battles town by town, county by county, and state by state. And so we welcome each and every one of you to join us

EVEN WHOLE ASSEMBLIES AND JURIES.

We also believe that if the American Founders had email, Twitter, texting, video conferencing and fax machines, they would have used them to approve the founding documents in weeks rather than years. So we are not addicted to scribes and other signs of deference to the methods of others. Rather, we follow a simple formula:

WE DECLARE – UNDER GOD – IT IS SO – WE ARE BACK

exactly the same formula used by the original declaration of 1776. That’s what we mean by “understanding who we are.”

http://www.guardiansofthefreerepublics.com/rationale.html

[Odin2005]

32. "the Constitutional institutions through December 19, 1860" Bigots, all of them.

[CatholicEdHead]

42. Yep, turn back the clock to just pre-Civil War

or to them the "War of Northern Aggression" :crazy:

[Odin2005]

43. Or as I call it "The War of Southern Treason"!

:evilgrin:

[Historic NY]

49. They only want parts of the constitution they can use for their goals...

interesting they want to pick and choose only the parts they like. They want a constitutional do over up to secession.

[caseymoz]

26. So, what would the Founding Fathers have done?

Shay's rebellion and the Whiskey Rebellion, the later specifically an anti-tax protest where they questioned Congress' power to tax in ways not mentioned in the Constitution, were put down firmly. In Shay's Rebellion, Revolutionary War veterans had a legitimate complaint over the fact that they had not been paid, but the Republic didn't have money. Shay's men marched toward Washington with their muskets, but Shays said emphatically that they weren't in rebellion against the government, they but they were merely armed to show they were "serious."

Well, none other a Founder than George Washington told them that if they did not put down their arms and disperse, they were in rebellion. When they refused to do so, Washington had the army gun them down.

How controversial was this among the Founders? Four years later, Washington was elected president, unanimously.

Now, if you show up at a protest with a rifle just to show Obama "you're serious," it's an issue of free speech!

[Odin2005]

31. LOL, Anarcho-Capitalism nutjobs.

[global1]

34. I Wonder If Gov. Mark Sanford (SC) Got One Of These Letters......

probably not - as these guys probably condone his cheating ways.

[Blue_Tires]

36. lol...with each passing Obama success, the more hysterical the nutbars get

Obama must be doing something right...

[truthisfreedom]

39. Free Republics=freepers

[alp227]

48. 16 years ago, G. Gordon Liddy called on listeners to defend their 2nd Ashooting amendment rights...

by shooting ATF agents in their heads.

16 years later, Liddy still is spewing brain-melting hogwash (and some anti-government words too) on the radio. (By the way, none other than Jonathan Krohn was a guest on today's show, according to his website!) Liddy has never faced any legal action for that "shoot ATF agents" remark...despite his previous conviction for his role in Watergate.

This year is pretty young yet crowded with radical right-wing violence already, starting with the suicide plane crash into the Austin IRS building and the shooting of two Pentagon police officers. Earlier this week, members of a radical Christian militia group, Hutaree, were arrested. And now there are letters threatening some state governors. This madness will just keep getting worse as the years go on.

[Kablooie]

53. Hey Look! You can join the Guardians of the Free Republics and be an asshole too!

http://www.guardiansofthefreerepublics.com/guardian.html

Join now and impress all your friends!