There seems to be a world of difference between what the local paper in your link says and the "vibe" of how you saw the meeting.

I think you are a hero, but why don't you tell us what actually happened? We weren't there, remember? You know all the details. We don't.

Did I mention that I thought you were a hero?

Spill, dude.

Do you know any filmmakers? Is anyone working on a documentary about these smoothies?

We say to the Minutemen, ‘Not in our city, not in our county, not in our neighborhood.’”

Most of the approximately 200 in attendance responded with whoops and a burst of applause.

Was that what it was like? I hope so.

I'm still very tired from staying up so late, so I'll be brief.

Dave Neiwert of the Orcinus blog was there and he will be posting a lengthy article next week. I'll post on it when Dave's published.

Background is in the archives of Public Good, as is the report (PDF)I presented last night. I did the research ten years ago after the last cycle culminated in the Washington State Militia bust (PDF, see page 15 et seq.)

The testimony began with about ten or so people the commission specifically asked to speak on the topic. I was asked to speak first on the historical background. I described how there is a ten-year cycle of white supremacist vigilante activity and how their first priority is to neutralize local law enforcement, particularly local Sheriffs. I emphasized the fact that this is not new activity and every community has white supremacists who have participated in previous cycles. As a result, they have more training than law enforcement leaders, who typically lose their jobs every time it blows up in their faces.

Our Sheriff, Bill Elfo, is a good guy and he is trying to get up to speed on this. I then described how law enforcement operates almost entirely through informants inside these groups. At this point, some of the Minutemen started looking at each other. Heh.

I congratulated everyone involved on the restraint that had been demonstrated so far (this is the only area in the US where the Minutemen have not been involved in criminal activity and have been put on sharp notice to watch their step) but cautioned that we appeared to be reaching the point where they were no longer achieving their purpose and beginning to get frustrated. This is where the trouble starts, as the hot heads start to seek scapegoats for their inability to accomplish their goals.

I noted that the Legal Observer program (organized more or less along the lines of the NLG's previous observer operations) now has more people watching the Minutemen than there are Minutemen. Then I got the only laugh of the evening from the Minutemen when I suggested they and the observers would probably benefit from having dinner together at the end of a hard day of watching.

There were about a dozen featured speakers (at about ten minutes each) and then about 25 people spoke who had signed up to testify. This ran the clock past the Herald's deadline and Stark left to write his usual puff piece based on handouts.

Everybody was well behaved, except for one very brief moment when some of the Minutemen booed one of the people testifying. The Commission chair immediately restored order and I think Tom Williams was chagrinned by the breach of decorum and discipline.

There was the usual continuous picuture-taking by both sides. The Minutemen are simultaneously desireous of publicity and afraid of being publicly identified by name, so it's always kind of interesting as they attempt to intimidate people with the "What's your name?" line, since they want to be anonymous themselves.

For the most part, the Minutemen just sat quietly and scowled their way through the hearing. Four of their members testified and none came across as being either truthful or sincere, but they certainly were armored in their rhetoric and self-righteousness.

I spoke to the head of the Bellingham Major Crimes Unit who was coordinating the plainclothes security at the meeting. He thinks they will dry up and blow away in a year or so. He's been through this before, since he coordinated the local law enforcement cooperation with the FBI on the WSM bust.

All in all, a good but tiring night.

The commission is very good about keeping the meeting going as long as anyone wants to testify.

I always enjoy seeing the Rev. He's the commissioner visible in profile on the right of the Herald photo. He just sits through the hearing impassively and then at the end delivers a couple of one-liners that totally skewer the nitwits.

I'll be at the Elisian tomorrow night for the meetup and you all can cross-examine me there.

Sorry about the typos. The spellchecker seems to be hanging but I'm on a dialup.

I worry it's going to take someone getting killed by these Minutemen yahoos before law enforcement REALLY takes them seriously, like it took the bombing in OKC before law enforcement took the "militias" seriously.*

*Interesting factoid: at the time of the OKC bombing, the FBI had an 800-page dossier of intelligence about ACT-UP, the anti-AIDS group, and NONE on state militias.

Well, nationally there have already been over 20 murders. There have been even more assaults, probably numbering in the hundres. The last one was yesterday. It was particularly awful, since it involved torture. We're still waiting on if the target is going to live.

It won't change until there is either a mass-murder or the Dems get control of one house of Congress. We'll probably start seeing domestic terrorism busts next year.

I should mention that I'm really proud to know you, warbaby.