In March 2010, nine members of the so-called Hutaree Militia were arrested on charges of seditious conspiracy, attempted use of weapons of mass destruction, teaching the use of explosive materials, and possessing a firearm during a crime of violence. The next year, the same scene was played out in Georgia when four men, Frederick Thomas, 73; Dan Roberts, 67; Ray Adams, 65; and Samuel Crump, 68, were arrested and charged with conspiring to attack federal buildings and kill federal officials. Focus on the ages for a second. In this case, one of the informants was facing federal child porn charges and the prosecutor was none other than Sally Yates, who was acting Attorney General in the first days of the Trump administration.

Their real crime was being part of a “militia” and talking trash about the US government. The two cases have a couple of things in common. They were brought by prosecutors who appeared to be more interested in getting on board with the Obama administration’s drive to muddy the waters of radical Islamic terrorism by creating the illusion that “homegrown” (this invariably meant “white”) anti-government terrorism was a greater threat than the Islamic variety than they were in pursuing justice. They all relied upon a web of informers within the groups to keep the FBI up to date on activities until a colorable violation of federal law took place. By reeling in the Walter-Mitty-types in Costco quantities, the FBI was able to juice its numbers, impress the Obama administration, and give the leftwing press a useful narrative to fling out the next time an airplane flies into a skyscraper.

Earlier in the year, the FBI rounded up thirteen mopes in Michigan who were “plotting” to kidnap Michigan’s Gauleiter (I think Gauleiterin is the correct term, but I’ll go with the easily recognizable version) Gretchen Whitmer. In this case, nothing progressed past the bullsh** session stage until one of the group members let it be known that he “had a guy” who could provide explosives and technical assistance. You guessed it. The man making the offer to provide explosives was an informant, and the “guy” who was to deliver them was an FBI agent.

Last week, this nugget appeared:

White supremacists plotted to attack power stations in the southeastern U.S., and an Ohio teenager who allegedly shared the plan said he wanted the group to be “operational” on a fast-tracked timeline if President Donald Trump were to lose his re-election bid, the FBI alleges in an affidavit that was mistakenly unsealed.

The teen was in a text group with more than a dozen people in the fall of 2019 when he introduced the idea of saving money to buy a ranch where they could participate in militant training, according to the affidavit, which was filed under seal along with a search warrant application in Wisconsin’s Eastern U.S. District Court in March. The documents were inadvertently unsealed last week before the mistake was discovered, and they were quickly sealed again.

The teenager wanted the group to be “operational” by the 2024 election because he believed it was likely a Democrat would win, but “the timeline for being operational would accelerate if President Trump lost the 2020 election,” according to the affidavit. An informant told investigators that the teen “definitely wanted to be operational for violence, but also activism.”

The Ohio teen, who was 17 at the time, also shared plans with a smaller group about a plot to create a power outage by shooting rifle rounds into power stations in the southeastern U.S. The teen called the plot “Light’s Out” and there were plans to carry it out in the summer of 2021, the affidavit states.

One group member, a Texas native who was a Purdue University student at the time, allegedly sent the informant a text saying “leaving the power off would wake people up to the harsh reality of life by wreaking havoc across the nation.”

…

The affidavit details an investigation into group members, who allegedly share white supremacist ideology. The document outlines how they communicated over encrypted messaging applications before three of them eventually met up in person. They also allegedly shared recommended reading on white supremacist literature, required a “uniform” to symbolize their commitment and talked about making weapons. The affidavit says the Ohio teen put Nazi flags in his room, but his mother told him to take them down [editor’s emphasis].

Some group members also indicated that they were prepared to die for their beliefs. One man from Oshkosh, Wisconsin, allegedly told the Ohio teen: “I can say with absolute certainty that I will die for this effort. I swear it on my life.” The teen replied: “I can say the same,” the court documents state.

According to the affidavit, the Wisconsin man also told an undercover FBI employee in February that the group was interested in taking “direct action” against the system and said, “If you truly want a fascist society I will put in the effort to work with you but recruitment is long and not going to be easy.”

We don’t know all the details here, but we have enough to make some inferences. There were college students involved. The “conspiracy” was carried out via messaging devices. The “conspiracy” involved uniforms and reading lists. The major direct action plan was dreamed up by a 17-year-old who thought shooting rifle rounds into power stations would create a regional blackout — spoiler alert, it won’t. There was at least one informer. This was not a serious plot. But, given the political climate and the magic words “white supremacist,” some of these people are going to do hard time and have their lives effectively destroyed just to let a federal prosecutor say, “Look at me, boss, I’m with the program,” to the incoming administration.

During the height of the Irish Republican Army’s campaign to drive the British out of Northern Ireland, there was a running joke that each IRA operational cell consisted of three men: two gunmen and a British informer. Much the same applies to “domestic terrorism” cases of the non-Islamic variety in the United States.

There are undoubtedly real conspiracies out there, but the one thing the FBI has shown us is that they are pretty damned incompetent about stopping those. The conspiracies that result in body counts, like the attempt to kill Pam Geller or the slaughter at the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health Christmas gathering, or the bomb at the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City don’t get discovered. We don’t know a lot about the bomb in Nashville, but, if it turns out to be part of some sort of conspiracy it was one that did not have an informer as a charter member. The FBI, even if the name does stand for F***ing Bunch of Idiots, aren’t stupid. They know they can’t penetrate a professionally managed conspiracy because those don’t involve hanging a Nazi flag on your wall or trying to buy explosives from folks you don’t know. To guard against the real conspiracies, the FBI has to build up its numbers of fake conspiracies so they can say, “Hey, we broke up ten conspiracies this year — sooner or later one had to slip through the cracks.”

As we slide into the blazing dumpster fire that will be a Biden administration, just keep a few things in mind. The FBI is sharpening its claws to go after disgruntled Trump supporters. It is not hard to see us getting to a point where merely mentioning that you think the 2020 election was stolen will be enough to put you on the radar of federal law enforcement. You may think you are just talking sh** in the RedState comments section or on Facebook or Twitter or a private email group, but someone is watching you. The guy talking the loudest about how we have to take action to defend our rights is probably on the FBI payroll. If anyone offers to help you do anything that could be considered criminal when taken in its worst light…like making a list of government officials’ home addresses, just for instance…they are on the FBI payroll. If you are even passively involved in a group where such talk takes place, you are putting yourself in jeopardy. Talking about civil war on the internet doesn’t make you look tough; it makes you look stupid, and it puts a target on your back and on the backs of anyone who interacts with you. When you are engaging in masturbatory fantasies with others using electronic devices, you are this guy from the television series The Wire:

A lot of us are angry at what seems to be an election that was carried out in a manner calculated to encourage vote fraud and we are angry that literally no one in government seems bothered enough to bother looking into the matter. That is understandable. Don’t let the FBI turn you being pissed off into a press release and an entry on their annual report about rightwing domestic terrorist plots they have broken up.