Michigan Militia

Please tell me that none of these folks is from Flint.

Charlie Savage of The New York Times reports:

Nine members of a Michigan-based Christian militia group have been indicted on sedition and weapons charges in connection with an alleged plot to murder law enforcement officers in hopes of setting off an antigovernment uprising.

In court filings unsealed Monday, the Justice Department accused the nine people of planning to kill an unidentified law enforcement officer, then plant improvised explosive devices of a type used by insurgents in Iraq to attack the funeral procession.

Eight of the defendants were arrested over the weekend in raids in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana. A ninth remained at large, the Justice Department said. The indictments against them were returned last Tuesday. The defendants were identified as members of Hutaree, described by federal prosecutors as an anti-government extremist organization based in Lenawee County, Mich., and which advocates violence against local, state and federal law enforcement. The group saw local and state police as “foot soldiers” for the federal government, which it viewed as its enemy, along with participants in what they deemed to be a “New World Order,” according to the indictment.

Fire Chief on the hotseat

Why would Flint Fire Chief Richard Dicks be running a private security firm — City Security Guard Company Ltd. — out of his home? Isn't running the fire department a pretty big job all by itself? And why would the fire chief's private security firm be doing business with Career Alliance Inc., a troubled non-profit job-training agency? And why is there an ongoing criminal investigation of Career Alliance? Perhaps the FBI was looking for answers when they visited Dicks' home on February 13.