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Long ago, two things convinced me that the Intertoobz were going to be capable of sustaining journalism as well as gambling information and porn. One was Dave Cullen’s masterful continuing coverage of the Columbine story and the other was the work done by Dave Neiwert in keeping track of the rise and fall and rise of the various right-wing extremist groups, especially those in the Pacific Northwest and in northern Rocky Mountains. Keep the latter in mind, because things are getting crazy out in the country again.
The story of Washington state legislator Matt Shea, which we have touched on here a couple of times, finally has broken through because, after all, how many state legislators get busted for this? From the Seattle Times:
“Representative Shea, as a leader in the Patriot Movement, planned, engaged in and promoted a total of three armed conflicts of political violence against the United States Government in three states outside the state of Washington over a three-year period,” according to the report released Thursday. “In one conflict Representative Shea led covert strategic pre-planning in advance of the conflict.”
Immediately after the report was released, Rep. J.T. Wilcox, the Republican minority leader of the House, said Shea “has been suspended from any role in the House Republican Caucus.”
“He should resign,” Wilcox wrote on Twitter. “He cannot use House Republican staff, he cannot meet with the caucus, his office will be moved.” Shea’s name and picture were removed from the House GOP website. Shea said he would not step down, calling the investigation a “sham.”
Shea has friends in Nevada, too, and they’re worthy of a look. From the Las Vegas Review-Journal:
The 41-day armed standoff in Oregon led by Ammon and Ryan Bundy evoked the battle waged against federal land control two years prior on their father’s Bunkerville ranch. Fiore, a former Nevada assemblywoman, in both cases . Less than a month before the Oregon standoff, the Coalition of Western States expressed support for the family in the middle of the land dispute, writing in a statement to reporters that federal land management agencies were grossly mismanaged. COWS was founded by Shea, the report found, as part of “a strategy for leadership over future Patriot Movement armed resistance against the federal government.”
And, finally, in Idaho, a state legislator named Heather Scott, who is a real prize, has been roped into this investigation as well, and she seems already to have taken a more direct approach to dealing with The Deep State. A couple years ago, Scott busted its attempt to bug her office. From the Idaho Statesman:
“While moving into our office spaces in the ‘garden’ level before the start of the 2015 session,” said Reps. Caroline Nilsson Troy, R-Genesee, and Don Cheatham, R-Post Falls, in a joint statement, “we witnessed Rep. Scott climbing up on her desk to more closely examine a small, black object that dangled from a thin wire from the ceiling directly above Rep. Scott’s office. She asked our opinion if the object could be a ‘listening device,’ before cutting the object off at the ceiling tile with a knife she had on her person.”
As one does.
Oh, and there are some sheriffs in Virginia who are going into business for themselves too.
This administration has unlocked all the locked wards of our politics. This is nowhere near the end of this stuff.
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Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.
