The two currents of "brotherhood," and of "white separatism" both run deep in this country. Let us pray that the current of "brotherhood" remains as the true bedrock of American greatness that our country continues to be remembered for. It is only "brotherhood" that makes the whole greater than the sum of its parts.
1
So, "What's the Matter with Kansas? " may be getting a new chapter...
3
There is no such thing as idle talk, people are pulled off the airplane for speaking a foreign language. These individuals were plotting and planning they deserve to be in jail forever. No mercy for them .
6
Exactly. The attorney in effect argues that people need to die before we are allowed to take these thugs seriously.
2
The defendants shouldn't worry. Trump will pardon them if they are convicted. They are "his kind of people." And then he will hold a rally to congratulate them.
2
This kind of terrorism has really taken off since the Trump campaign but his supporters can never use the "T" word when it comes to perpetrators of hate and violence from a certain Fox "News" loving demographic.
1
“Uniquely political”...Murder is murder no matter how you attempt to dress it up... These defendants are alarmed by the growing number of immigrants. I am alarmed by the number of descendants of immigrants in this country that think murder is acceptable because they go there first.
4
Let's just add that, in an environment of constant attack by less-than-loyal politicians, this is another example of a job well done by the FBI.
It feels strange to me to be applauding the FBI after the likes of J Edgar Hoover, attacks on M.L. King, and COINTELPRO, but when they do their jobs well and professionally it should be recognized.
5
Seems like racist, anti-Muslim terror plot to me. These guys didn't just write a manifesto about defending America form immigrants. They didn't just talk about bombing immigrants in the abstract. They picked a target, a Somali Mosque, picked a date, and started building bombs.
5
This case hardly got any exposure from the national media. I think we all know why: double standards for White Americans vs. minorities.
Had this been brown Muslims from the Middle East as defendants, the Tweeter in Chief and GOP news outlets would have pounced on this story.
White supremacy is a large factor for America's flirting with fascism, and it does not care about domestic terrorism since the two have a common agenda. We ask more Muslims to speak out, yet don't do the same for these 'Heartland Americans'.
13
Spot on.
3
It's almost always the same with such people, bound together by a catechism of resentment and disaffection: act like patriotic heroes, plot in secrecy and threaten anonymously, but when caught cowardly deny everything. Why not continue to stand up and declare their pride in being racist xenophobes who blame others - "elites," immigrants, minorities, liberals et al. for their empty lives?
As so many seem so steeped in hatred as to be irredeemable, perhaps only time will rid us of their kind -- maybe after two more generations pass.
3
It never really passes. It waxes and wanes. Sometimes it's driven underground for a while; you might say "political correctness" rules. Then it insists on bursting forth again, when it finds fertile ground, economic hardships, demagoguery, and the like. For those looking back and despising the bigots and haters of one generation, beware. It's easier to see in another time than in one's own.
3
In legal parlance (according to the case law) the important line here is between "mere preparation" and an "affirmative act constituting an attempt." I imagine that the feds also filed counts of conspiracy, just in case the attempt line was not crossed. We'll see.
1
It is not freedom of speech or idle talk when threats of physical violence is advocated. The 1st amendment does not guarantee your right to threaten others with murder. The 1st amendment states "the right to peaceably assemble". There is no mention or support of group violence against others. This is how mob rule starts.
10
I’ve often found that hat crime cases like this take so long to come to trial for a reason, there’s not enough evidence. The Government releases these serious allegations to the public to discourage hate crime activity, then we ultimately find that most the allegations were unfounded. We’ll see if that happens once again.
I thought the folks in the rural states were worried about depopulation and lack of opportunity? A town on 26 thousand can't afford to loose half of it's population. Further, without those workers why would business bother to stay? The sad fact is that the cause that the these 3 men are fighting is long dead. The reality will dawn on the state that the winds of history continue to blow and they will simply be swept away.
5
Yes the constitution, just idle thoughts written on paper by white men. Nothing to see here....
1
" They started gathering supplies, making homemade explosives and holding planning meetings" This moves the situation well beyond "idle talk."
16
I know it’s not the main point here, but why do all deplorable share the same self-dramatizing facial hair? From Kevin Williamson on down, they all seem to think they’re extras in Game of Thrones. Is it some Germanic/Viking wannabe thing?
10
I'm assuming Jackson you are including all the muslim terrorists as well...many of them had/have facial hair.
There was a similar case in Canada a few years ago, except it was a trio of Muslim guys talking about jihad and a bomb plot on Canadian soil. The feds bugged and tailed them for months at a cost of millions. Overtime, the plot fizzled as one of them changed his mind and said if they wanted jihad they had to go to Afghanistan and fight it directly. Plus his wife got a new job so he was moving. The cops sprang right after that. They all got convicted under a new provision in the criminal code that made discussion an attack a crime. The free-speech, nothing actually happened, and reasonable expectation of privacy arguments didn't fly either.
It will be interesting to see how this trial goes in terms of arguments and outcome in the US.
6
The fact that defense attorneys are seeking Trump supporters to serve on the jury says a lot about our president.
27
It's an appalling tactic, but probably technically allowed for at least part of the panel of jurors. There's that thing about being judged by your peers.
3
When Muslims in this country commit crimes we're all implored with the phrase, "when you see something, say something." It's implied that if someone had just said something before the crime had been committed (San Bernadino, the Boston Marathon bombing, etc) it could have been prevented. And certainly there had to have been people who saw signs there was some sort of planned crime underway.
Funny how that same logic is not being exercised in this case, when it's a bunch of white "Christians" who planned a crime against Muslims. Turns out someone *did* see something and say something. But now these fools are arguing their first amendment rights are being abridged? Building bombs and planning an attack on their neighbors is now freedom of speech? That's some interesting legal contortion, but given the jury pool in Kansas I wouldn't be surprised if the argument works.
29
These three idiots and the people that think they didn't commit a crime make me ashamed to be white.
19
This comment makes me ashmed to be human
It's not idle talk when misguided Muslim youth are baited by undercover FBI agents to say they would commit acts of violence in the United States.
Even when it's a clear case of entrapment, these men often plea deal for long jail sentences to avoid even longer jail sentences.
In the many examples of the above, the federal prosecutors punch the win column and the administration touts the success of the war on terror.
In Kansas, however, not even assembling the bombs is guaranteed to put away white, Christian men on terrorism charges.
There's absolutely no double standard here. It's the way America has always worked.
22
Where's the ACLU?
1
Busy representing people with REAL First Amendment cases, not people like these thugs.
9
America’s finest.
5
Bet these are the dudes who left the 2 dead dear next to my Obama campaign sign years back when I lived there.
Glad I moved from Kansas.
15
It looks like an open and shut case, but they will be judged by a jury of their peers; at least some racist like themselves.
In South Carolina, Officer Michael Thomas Slager shot Walter Scott in the back following a routine traffic stop, then planted his taser next to Scott's body to implicated Scott. This was first degree murder and Officer Slager really should be on Death Row. However, the first trial ended in a hung jury as one juror refused to convict the white officer despite overwhelming evidence. Instead of risking a new trial where Officer Slager might walk, the prosecutors accepted a guilty plea and 20 years behind bars. Unfortunately, Slager will be up for parole and could walk in ten years.
In two separate trials, one in Nevada and the other in Oregon, members of the Bundy family escaped justice because they were judged by a jury of their peers.
Don't be surprised if these three boneheads walk.
22
I've been in locker rooms, at barbecues, on the gun range, and lots of places for a real long time. Heard a lot of rough talk and one-upper fellas being tough. But never, never heard men planning to murder anybody or anybody's little child. Never heard of gathering weapons or making bombs. That is not locker room talk. Not tough-guy talk. It's conspiracy to commit murders as hate crimes. Terrorism. Throw the book at 'em.
42
Agreed. Their defense attorney has a real uphill climb to try to argue that taking actual steps in furtherance of their conspiracy constitutes Free Speech. But in Kansas, who knows?
4
If these three were planning and arming for that then they should never know life outside a prison again. Throw away the key!
At least the Somali immigrants and refugees they targeted actually *live* in the buildings, unlike certain fatcats who buy up our precious apartments and homes to flip and hoard without so much as visiting to say hi to the locals. The latter shouldn't even be legal, and home ownership and apartment rental really should be limited to 2 total so others have a chance.
Let's make housing a right, not a "market" (cartel), and ensure no domestic terrorists can ever put residents in danger simply because Muslims.
5
Any bets on whether Trump will pardon them if they are convicted? And if they are acquitted, will the State of Kansas prosecute them for conspiracy to murder?
The fact that defense lawyers are trying to find Trump-loving jurors tells you what kind of person Trump is
15
This is KANSAS, People. I will be gobsmacked if they are all Convicted.
Seriously.
15
But why the detail about praying? If the terrorists merely planned to bomb the place where refugees lived would be bad in itself. Is this facet intended to generate sympathy, or somehow single the Somalis out?
It's Kansas, they will walk.
7
NY has the worst prisons in the country, clean up your own backyard
The jury system and the prison system are not the same thing.
3
Hey, it was just idle chat about threatening employers and landlords who cater to a visible minority while making explosives to blow up employers, landlords, and those visible minorities. It's just the sort of free speech we would all welcome from a group of guys who live an hour away but have come specifically to target our neighbors. What God loving patriots have not done something similar from time to time?
Really, some people are trying to defend this? Why?
15
If the government really was serious about locking up all the people that threatened Obama, the midwest, the south and great plains would be empty and the prisons would need to be bigger than any republican could dream of.
7
They'll walk.
If only one member of the NRA terrorist organization is on the jury.
9
After the Bundy crime family was released and found not guilty last year when they took over that wildlife refuge in Oregon, and also when they and their AR-15 toting gang of thugs threatened Federal law enforcement at the Bundy ranch in Nevada, I would not be at all surprised if these 3 get off too.
21
Gathering g supplies for a planned attack sounds like more than idle talk.
22
Making homemade explosives is not legal. That sort of makes "idle talk" more like planning, viz., premeditation. So, the idea that those boys were just sitting around and chatting is at best a bad defense.
Racists like that are not safe for society because they do not just sit about and engage in idle talk; they end up killing folks. Were these capital offenses. I'd be willing to pull the switch on all three of them. Free of charge. Probably a safer bet than believing one can root out what's bound to be years of racist hate flowing through their heads.
Just sad.
7
I highly doubt these domestic terrorist defendants could care less about the righteousness of 'Free Speech' in which their advocates try to cloak them.
11
As is said "the devil finds work for idle hands to do" and idle talk led to busy hands gathering explosive materials and making bombs.
9
I've been following these guys. If they don't get life in prison, there is no justice.
36
Life in prison for what? They did not commit any violent act or any other physical activity that brought actual harm to anyone.
Because they were caught beforehand by an undercover agent. Heavens you must agree to the slaughter they were preparing if you don't think they should be charged. What do you want dead bodies as evidence?
17
Life in prison for domestic terrorism, plotting and making explosives, targeting a certain location, and only not following through because they were arrested first. The article outlines just how far they went.
7
These three deplorable s didn’t yell “FIRE” in a crowded theater. They tried to set the theater on fire. In this case the FBI did not over reach. They used the long arm of the law.
47
More of those fine people, Mr. Trump was referring too. Nice to see the FBI doing their job. But I wouldn't bet on justice prevailing here.
30
You can't hide behind common talk and political speech if you start making bombs. The case ought not be close. But on a larger scale, what's the matter with Kansas? They elected Brownback and his tax cuts clobbered the economy, they raise their own home grown terrorists--because that's what making bombs makes them. Okay, I get it that people may be hurting, but when do enough Kansans say this isn't working and go in another direction?
24
Guilty as charged. And they’ll walk. Count on it.
37
Imagine how much credence we would give to the idea of "idle talk" if the situation we reversed and three black muslin immigrants were had drawn up a manifesto and were plotting to blow up white Christians.
100
"Imagine how much credence we would give to the idea of "idle talk" if the situation we reversed and three black muslin immigrants"
No need to imagine it, there have been real cases of incapable Muslims being caught up by paid informants who try to sell them on plans to blow up something. Sometimes, this included homeless Muslims who could not possibly have managed to do anything on their own (or had prior notions of doing any such thing). They are all in jail. Their acceptance of taking part in a plan was all that was needed to put them there. The instigators would be fake-Muslims or Muslims forced into that position by the FBI. When communities would call them out or report them, they would move to another community to find people to entrap.
10
"The lawyers said the case was “uniquely political” and that they wanted a pool with more rural, conservative jurors."
I wonder do they propose everyone being able to pick jury members from their social clubs as well?
44
Once they began to build the bombs, I would think that the line was crossed and any argument about free speech would not apply. There are American Muslims in US prisons on terrorism convictions for cases in which the line from talk to action was never crossed. But, if Vegas odds makers were accepting bets on how this plays out, I would bet heavily on No Conviction. I would place a second bet on Conviction No Jail Time. It is just a fact that White Christian men are allowed to engage in terrorism in the United States. Only in the most extreme and public cases is a white man sent to jail for crimes of terrorism.
61
That the defense is citing the political climate of 2016 to excuse domestic terrorism says a lot. And it's terrifying.
117
This is the face of bigotry, and ignorance, willful ignorance no less. While it's nice that as their defense lawyers said, "no one was physically injured", well I'm sure that's a small consolation to those who could have been injured. But that doesn't negate their overall plans, to maim and kill, innocent people regardless of the reason.
These people aren't the exception, rather these are probably the norm, or at least the outspoken ones. The rest just skulk around, and cast the "evil eye" an any nonwhite person. Pretend that they aren't a bigot. But these three aren't just talking off the top of their heads, they planned to hurt people are probably would have followed through.
With any luck, they will wind up where they deserve to be, ostracized from society, in prison where a disproportionate number of people of color have been put, for a lot less than threatening to blow people up. So, maybe they will get some form of justice while sitting in prison, wondering where did their well thought out plan go so wrong, and wonder what kind of society would put whites away for killing an maiming people of color.
A country that believes that all men are created equal, that's kind of a country lock up people like these three. Nevertheless, they will be in good company, while in prison, for what we can only hope is the rest of their lives.
48
"Kansans voted overwhelmingly for Donald J. Trump, and defense lawyers sought to pick a jury from counties where high percentages of people voted for him. The lawyers said the case was “uniquely political” and that they wanted a pool with more rural, conservative jurors."
So essentially the defense attorneys think that these people will be more sympathetic to domestic terrorists.
141
Sounds right to me.
16
Likely right.
5
So.......we wait, people DIE, and then folks say "Gee, why didn't the FBI act?"
Stop blaming the FBI.
They're the Good Guys.
111
It's just a matter of time - some hateful person emboldened by the "political talk in 2016" will manage to harm many people because of the color of their skin, their religion, or their country of origin. How can I be so sure? Because every single day - every day - the "political talk" escalates in comment sections like Breitbart's, or social media platforms. You need only read the president's twitter feed to see how far we've fallen and how much our discourse has degraded. It all starts as "political talk". Just ask any holocaust survivor.
73
This seems really open and shut to me. These three guys actually made bombs, right? They gathered supplies, made explosives, and held planning meetings.
So it's not "just talk", it was a terrorist plot, and I hope justice is served and all three of these racist terrorists go to jail for life.
112
So I guess by this logic, I can get my buddies together and make detailed plans for gruesomely murdering these three if and when they walk free. Hey, it's just words, right?
59
That's right. But the American court system isn't built on logic but on "peers". In more logic-bound legal systems with no jury decisions it is harder to judge the exact same behavior in vastly different ways. Principles are established by rulings and when you are sentenced to jail for something for which another one walked free, you could reasonably challenge your ruling on constitutional grounds (in most European constitutions some "law equality" is guaranteed). This is not the case in the US where not only concrete talk about murder and dabbling in home pyrotechnics may be (is) judged differenly, depending on local sensibilities (i.e. racism) and jury tweaking, but also, say, posession of the exact same quantity of "drugs" could get you pretty anything, depending on state, county, judge, jury, lawyer, and, of course, your personal setup (dark hoodie guy or lily-white collar guy).
1
If the following paragraph in the news story is true, these men are ctiminal terrorists:
"Eventually, the men, who each lived about an hour’s drive from Garden City, focused on the Mary Street apartments. They started gathering supplies, making homemade explosives and holding planning meetings, which the F.B.I.’s informant recorded, sometimes with country music playing in the background, the agent said."
It is not illegal to talk about committing a crime but once the talk turns to actual preparation, a crime has occurred.
54
Even when they’re listening to country music.
1
"They started gathering supplies, making homemade explosives...." And how do their defense attorneys explain that? Just a hobby of these men?
59
Don’t confuse the role of the defense attorney. She has to put on the best legal defense no matter how she personally feels. When you have to defend someone like this, it’s pretty hard to do your job. I am reminded of this when I recall a friend who had the unenviable task of defending Timothy McVeigh.
It seems to me that if these men were truly gathering supplies and actually making home-made explosives then their actions had far transcended mere speech and represented actual conspiracy. It is a little hard to imagine what the line between speech and conspiracy would be if one were to try to separate them in this case.
34
If the jury can’t see that they are as rotten as the defendants.
We've got a 4-pack of the same basic stuff locally right now. Four men with militia connections are accused of possessing a machine gun in or near a tiny town in adjoining Ford County. In various combinations, members of the four are also charged with other crimes, including bombing a Minnesota mosque and attempting to fire bomb a local women's clinic. The leader is a former Ford County sheriff's deputy and Libertarian candidate for sheriff.
Apparently impatient with the electoral process, they seem to feel that the best solution to people who they claim break the law in some fashion is to adopt the great idea that anything goes when something irritates them politically.
Such incidents suggest that if the outcome of 2016 had been our first female president, incidents of right-wing violence might've quickly accelerated into our own domestic version of the Taliban. Charlottesville was bad, but we've avoided
worse - so far.
Besides racism, there's also a notable shift in support of such groups to treating women with reckless disregard for their rights. Abortion has been under attack, literally, but consider that conservative misogynists have dared to suggest that contraception itself is too controversial a topic to rate public funding so all women who want access to it can be assured of its availability.
Into this violent milieu we now have mixed in a national leadership that is a clear and present danger to civil rights, poised to soon become politically unglued. Scary.
51
These people are domestic terrorists and should be treated as such.
77
And I believe they are being treated that way. But they do have certain rights, one of which is a vigorous defense.
1
"In 2014, a white supremacist killed three people outside Jewish centers in Overland Park."
the attack on the Jewish Centers was intended to kill those of that faith. it did not, it killed Christians who were at the locations for non religious purposes
41
Isn’t America great, again!
24
America was never great. Not under Clinton, Bush, Obama or Trump. get over it. It didnt start with Trump.
2