’)The ATF says it has broken up a plot to assassinate Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and shoot or decapitate 102 black people in a Tennessee murder spree.
In court records unsealed Monday, agents said they disrupted plans to rob a gun store and target an unnamed but predominantly African-American high school by two neo-Nazi skinheads.
Jim Cavanaugh, special agent in charge of ATF’s Nashville field office, said the two men planned to shoot 88 black people and decapitate another 14. The numbers 88 and 14 are symbolic in the white supremacist community.
The men also sought to go on a national killing spree, with Obama as its final target, Cavanaugh told The Associated Press.
“They said that would be their last, final act – that they would attempt to kill Sen. Obama,” Cavanaugh said. “They didn’t believe they would be able to do it, but that they would get killed trying.”
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Interesting, given that one half of Obama’s ancestry is white. What is murdering a presidential candidate supposed to accomplish- winning converts over to the Skinhead philosophy? Showing Al-Qaeda we’re a democracy and don’t have extremists?
I doubt these two assholes posed much of a threat to Obama, but getting them off the streets for a long, long time seems to be a very good thing.
And if someone should be careless and lose the key to their cells, no great loss…
J.
It is better to be safe then sorry.
Clowns like this don’t worry me too much – they generally fail due to their own stupidity. It’s the ones we don’t hear about who might actually pull something off that worries me. There are tons of militiamen and separatists out there, not to mention the evangelicals prepping for Armageddon (and getting tired of waiting) that we need to be on the look out for.
why 88 and 14? Was Hitler’s wang 14 cm long or something? (5.5 inches.)
These idiots were probably about as much a threat as those “terrorist” boobs in Miami.
Well, now, there’s the measured, careful Jay Tea we missed when the Ashley Todd story first broke. When that story broke, Jay Tea and his fellow bloggers at Wizbang were all riled up about the imminent danger posed by Obama’s inflammatory rhetoric.
Jay Tea demanded Obama repudiate his obvious calls to physical violence and intimidation while his colleague Kim Priestap wrote:
Yup, those were heady hours of outrage before the whole story turned out to be completely fake.
But what is Jay Tea’s response when a real plot and a real threat to black people’s lives is uncovered?
A great big “Eh.”
“why 88 and 14?”
Yeah, I’d like to know why those numbers are significant as well, but I don’t want to do the research, cause I don’t want to accidentally surf over to a hate site.
“These idiots were probably about as much a threat as those ‘terrorist’ boobs in Miami.”
Was that the group whose home videos were so amateurish that the government assumed it had to be part of a terrorist plot?
A quick google gave this:
The numbers “14-88,” with 14 standing for the 14 words white supremacists use as their oath, and 88, or 8, standing for the eighth letter of the alphabet, “H.” Two “Hs” together stand for Heil Hitler.
(from this site: http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/cgi-bin/blogs/voices.php/2008/03/31/tattoos_tell_a_tale_of_intimidation)
What was that about “get in their faces”, Jay?
Be fair, Fafaroo, he’s okay with them rotting in jail, as am I.
“88″ is Heil Hitler.
“14″ is the Fourteen Words, the Neo-Nazis’ creed as coined by David Lane paraphrasing Hitler: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”
18 is another one, as in Combat 18.
I’ve known for some time the “88″ as “HH,” or “Heil Hitler,” but often found myself wondering if it also refers to the very-potent German WWII gun, the 3.5″ cannon, more popularly referred to as the “88″ for its 88-mm caliber. It was used for anti-aircraft on both land and ships, artillery, and panzer main guns, and was VERY feared by Allied forces.
Or it could just be a coincidence…
J.
They certainly were serious about their intent, but their plan sounds incredibly stupid: robbing gun stores to get money and weapons and ammunition.
I’m kinda sorry they got arrested. If they’d actually tried that plan, they might have spared us all the costs of their trial and incarceration…
J.
I wouldn’t give Nazis the credit for that kind of complex associative thought.
[...] ATF Stops Assassination Plot (Another) [...]
Jay, care to answer the question up-thread as to why you took the “carved B” so seriously when it was an obvious hoax, but an _actual_ attempt to murder people is “no big deal” for you?
Or do you just simply not care about your credibility any longer?
The latest: the assassins planned to wear white tuxedos and top hats during the attack.
Bee. Zarr.
Jaim, I withheld my own judgment on the face-carving incident because I wanted to see how more details would develop. I never said that it was valid, merely that the rush to judgment here was premature. And also played a bit of devil’s advocate.
That incident and this one are, in an odd sort of way, mirror images. The face carver was plausible, but fraudulent; these neo-Nazis were a genuine conspiracy, but an incredibly implausible threat.
The same lesson from both: some people can be real assholes. Not just verbal assholes like Strowbridge, but actual semi-dangerous assholes.
Another good lesson: what Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs calls “the 48 hour rule.” When something breaks that sounds as spectacular as these stories, it’s wise to wait 48 hours or so to see what else develops before jumping to any great conclusions.
J.
“The latest: the assassins planned to wear white tuxedos and top hats during the attack.
Bee. Zarr.”
No it’s not. I just saw a picture of one of them, and the first thing I thought was, ‘He looks kind of gay.’ And this was before I knew who it was.
But it makes sense. I self-hating gay boy hooking up with Neo-Nazis and wanting to die.
Note the date and time: 7:08 a.m., October 28, 2008.
Strowbridge said something that actually made a bit of sense, and while I’m not ready to agree with it, I can see the logic and think it entirely plausible.
Oliver, I think you got someone impersonating Strowbridge here…
But back to the point: these assholes needed to be stopped, and they need to spend many, many years making small rocks out of big ones. And while I think it would have been appealing to see them get killed while carrying out their dipshit half-baked scheme, I find myself relieved that they were busted before they hurt anyone — or anyone killed them, and had to live with those consequences.
But as someone else said, this is also reminiscent of those terrorist plots the Bush administration talked about breaking up. In those cases, there was always this breathless analysis of just how implausible those schemes were, and they weren’t really any great threat. Odd how no one is talking about how this “Obama assassination plot” had essentially zero chances of succeeding…
J.
“Odd how no one is talking about how this ‘Obama assassination plot’ had essentially zero chances of succeeding…”
Hmmm. Maybe because, sadly, we all have ample evidence of how easy it is kill a lot of people in a school which was the center point of their plan.
We do not have so much evidence that it’s easy or even plausible to bring down the Brooklyn Bridge with blow torches or level the Sears Tower without any explosives or weapons and when all your principle financing, including the money for your shoes, comes from undercover FBI agents.
Of course, it’s also odd how you spent the early hours after the Ashley Todd story broke worrying that the left was poised to invade her privacy to find anything “that will discredit her” in order to avoid talking about “talking about the climate that probably provoked this woman’s attack and maiming.”
As I asked before, Jay Tea, would you now care, at all, to pontificate on the “climate” that would provoke a young woman to fake such a potentially explosive story?
Would you care you explain why it was so necessary in the early hours of the Todd story for Obama to “condemn this hate crime, and dial back on the “get in their faces” rhetoric…” (of course, you demanded this condemnation after the Obama campaign had already done so).
Would you also care to tell us why you were less interested in the actual truth of Todd’s tale and more interested in the Obama campaign’s behavior? As you wrote: “I’m more interested in seeing how the Obama supporters and the campaign handle it at this point.”
Also could you care to explain why, in all your dubiousness, you still find yourself able to write this rather emphatic statement: “…and this has exactly what to do with someone ‘getting into the face’ of a McCain supporter with a knife?” Here you not only take the story at face value but explicitly link it to Obama.
Of course, I’d love to see the email you sent to your Wizbang colleague, Kim Priestap, in which you explained to her that race baiting before all the facts are in is not such a good idea. You did send that email, didn’t you, Jay Tea?
After all, obviously felt that Obama’s words could have incited the attack on Todd. So you must have been appalled at Priestap’s incendiary tirade against Obama supporters:
No doubt “some people can be real assholes. Not just verbal assholes like Strowbridge, but actual semi-dangerous assholes.” And indeed, we often see how the verbal assholes, such as Priestap, can end up encouraging the really dangerous assholes to do something stupid.
CSS: I just saw a picture of one of them, and the first thing I thought was, ‘He looks kind of gay.’
I’m curious. Just what was it that made him “look gay”?
And why would his being gay “make sense”?
“… it’s wise to wait 48 hours or so to see what else develops before jumping to any great conclusions.”
Just to add, Jay Tea, have you reminded Kim Priestap of this rule yet?
Jay, you’re such a hypocrite it’s unbelievable.
Hey, Jay Tea. Fafaroo asked you a question.
Repeatedly.
Well?
“I’m curious. Just what was it that made him ‘look gay’?”
It was the way he was holding his gun.
“And why would his being gay ‘make sense’?”
Overcompensation. Self-hating gays tend to gravitate to people who also hate gays, including the religious right and Nazi organizations. The leader of the Austrian neo-right party recently died and it turns out he was gay, but that’s just one such example.
Lesson to learn… being gay isn’t a problem. Hating gays, especially when you are one, is a major fucking problem.
Wow. That’s just…. wow.
For someone so adamant that people provide proof and evidence sufficient to back up the claims they are making to make such generalizations is surprising.
He looks gay because of the way he’s holding his gun? Really? Just what would be the non-gay way to hold it?
As for sufficient evidence to back up your claim, how many “self-hating gays” are there in the world and how many of those overcompensate and gravitate towards groups that hate gays? You mention one example but, by the standards you’ve used many times, that is inadequate to support the blanket statement that “Self-hating gays tend to gravitate to people who also hate gays”.
Do you have a problem with those who are gay, CSS, that you so readily see someone as gay based on a single photograph?