Plane Crash into building in Austin

[Equine_Woman]

Anyone else watching this?

Plane was stolen, crashed into CIA offices in Austin.

[WashingtonBay]

Yeah - I've been kinda half-watching while doing other stuff....

Apparently the IRS (and perhaps other Fed offices) are also in the building and may have been the 'target'.

Did I just hear that this guy torched his house, too, before taking the plane?

[Equine_Woman]

That's the story right now. . .but how on earth could they know he did it. . . they said that the neighbor saved the wife and 12 year old daughter out of the house but he husband is gone. Sounds like a lot fo speculation at this point. . .

[palomino]

Im having terrible flashbacks. I hope this is just a freak accident, I dont know if I could handle another terrorist attack on American soil.
Makes me want to re enlist.

[Sundays Man]

At first everyone was doing the normal jump back as far as you can from making this sound suspicious. C'mon, I mean the building housed the local FBI. After a few hours the NTSB now says "the act may have been intentional"....Geee!!! Ya think!!!!???

I have thought for a long time that this would be the next preferred way to attack on a smaller scale. Our leaders have obviously not learned a thing and it's once again easy for these gutless pieces of wasted flesh to get to us. Our security is so lax you could ride up on a camel with a rag on your head and take flying lessons and rent a plane and everyone would be scared to death to "profile" you. God forbid we commit such a heinous crime. We might hurt their feeling and get sued.

[palomino]

I hope its just some whack job that stole a plane- but then thats domestic terrorism, isnt it?

[Equine_Woman]

There is another plane that has been diverted for a bomb thread, from Denver to San Fran I believe. . .

[Equine_Woman]

The news I'm watching says it was intentional. Not saying how they know that though. The owner of the plane is the man who's house was burned. . . so it does look like he torched his house first. . . It's an CIA, IRS building.

[WashingtonBay]

By the way.... Sunday's Man and EW - I merged the two threads you guys posted, just minutes apart.

[Equine_Woman]

If this is someone who owns a plane, lives in our country, sounds like a natural born citizen, and decides to take out a building how do you propose the government stop them? Not allow everyday citizens to own planes? My Dad has a plane. . . all his friends have planes. . . no one monitors them. Heck my Dad lives in an underground house and isn't a fan strangers. .. should he be profiled?

[Sundays Man]

My anger might have gotten the best of me, but still, I think we are weak in some points of security. They are saying the pilot was Joseph Allen Stack or something like that. I guess it COULD have been someone angry with the FBI or the govt. or something. Or one of those terrible right wing radical pro life people since they have been deemed a threat to national security. J/K.

[Equine_Woman]

You just assume they were muslim I bet. Never a good idea to profile. . .

[Sundays Man]

If this is someone who owns a plane, lives in our country, sounds like a natural born citizen, and decides to take out a building how do you propose the government stop them? Not allow everyday citizens to own planes? My Dad has a plane. . . all his friends have planes. . . no one monitors them. Heck my Dad lives in an underground house and isn't a fan strangers. .. should he be profiled?

No, we can't keep every disturbed person in our country from doing stupid things. There are many incidents that have happened that all we can do is shake our head and wonder what drove a person to do that? It's sad but true reality in our crazy world it seems these days. People like that only want to hurt those who have hurt them it seems, but the islamic radicals want all of us dead and will try to destroy us by any means available. We can do more to protect against them and should. My initial raving comments were against the enemy not our own people.

Hey, my dad always wanted a house below ground level. He even had plans for it. He was going to heat and cool with air from small tunnel like holes from deeper underground where the air temp is always warmer or cooler than the outside temp, depending on the season. I think that is smart, not suspicious.

[oursarge]

I must live in a cave, I haven't heard anything about it and have had the TV on all day.

[Sundays Man]

I must live in a cave, I haven't heard anything about it and have had the TV on all day.

Obviously not a fan of FNC. LOL.

I just read where a local high school senior who had recently signed to play football at Vanderbilt was murdered in his home along with his mother. They were killed by an ex-boyfriend of the mother and he commited suicide after the shootings. God help us. Whether by air plane or gun, it's very sad and hard to understand.

[Equine_Woman]

It's on our local station.

[Sundays Man]

You just assume they were muslim I bet. Never a good idea to profile. . .

Wonder why I thought that? But profiling isn't a bad thing if we profile our enemy and ensure the security and safety of our nation. I think it was a natural thing for a LOT of people to suspect terrorist links to this at first. Either way though, innocent people died in that building and we need to send our prayers to their families. What an absolute tragedy.

[Sundays Man]

It's on our local station.

I haven't checked, but I'm sure all the other major cable news folks are carrying it too. It's not on any local stations here in Georgia yet that I have seen.

[Vacker Hast]

Just heard the man did set his home on fire and he targeted the IRS. Fire crews are inside the building now and all are accounted for with the exeption of one person.

Stacy

[Equine_Woman]

Evidently the guy who did it left a 6 page suicide letter. . .

[cyb]

He was not happy with the IRS and left a suicide note online, the closing statement of his note said "Take my pound of flesh and sleep well"

[oursarge]

Obviously not a fan of FNC. LOL.

I just read where a local high school senior who had recently signed to play football at Vanderbilt was murdered in his home along with his mother. They were killed by an ex-boyfriend of the mother and he commited suicide after the shootings. God help us. Whether by air plane or gun, it's very sad and hard to understand.

I don't think we get FNC. I actually have never heard of it. There's so much we don't get on our cable because it cost extra money so we have the package that is just above basic. I checked the networks ABC, NBC & CBS and they have Soaps on, I had TNT on. OK I just found it but I'm not sure what I'm watching, maybe CNN. The whole thing is terrible.

[WashingtonBay]

Evidently the guy who did it left a 6 page suicide letter. . .

Well, I guess his motives won't be a mystery for long then.

EW... FWIW, I agree with you on our freedom to own and rent planes and that it should be cherished. I was a pilot too, once, I am long rusty now, but I went to school to fly, have my single, multi and instructor ratings. It was what I was going to do with my life, before I made a couple detours and never made it back.

So with that perspective and a history of being able to rent planes myself, I have long been aware it's a bit of a hole in our 'security'. But it's one that many, myself included, would fight to defend the status quo on, it would be a shame if it got to the point where people had to go through a lot of red tape to fly.

[CaddoCinnamon]

I had Bret at BK for lunch and playtime and heard it then.

[WashingtonBay]

This is being reported as his screed: Well Mr. Big Brother IRS man... take my pound of flesh and sleep well. (http://embeddedart.com/)


OK - on edit: I see it's been taken down.

Here it is from another site: The Manifesto Of Austin Texas Crash Pilot Joseph Andrew Stack (http://www.businessinsider.com/joseph-andrew-stacks-insane-manifesto-2010-2)

[Equine_Woman]

Wow. I don't understand people who are suicidal. I just don't get it. On edit that's not true. . .if I lot my kid I could understand it. But this man torched his house with his wife and kid in it and tried to take out a bunch of other people the same time he took himself out. . .

[WashingtonBay]

I guess I do understand a little suicidal people, I had a lot of experience with one in college... he tried 9 times to kill himself, over a girl, and a belief that his career was over (in college).

I've been depressed in life, I can understand feeling like it can never get any better.... I guess what I don't understand is how people who still have much more in life than many, feel they have nothing. This guy didn't have nothing, he had a family, a house, a plane... So what if he had a tax bill... so do all of us. It's just money.

I've been reading with some amusement political forums on both sides try to run around and pin this screed of his on 'the other side'. I've read through it, there are parts of it that sound just like posts I read every day on both Free Republic, and Democratic Underground. This guy apparently has a political philosophy that straddles both sides, and yet fits into neither side. Might be part of why he felt fairly isolated.

[WashingtonBay]

Full text of the manifesto in case that gets taken down too:
If you’re reading this, you’re no doubt asking yourself, “Why did this have to happen?” The simple truth is that it is complicated and has been coming for a long time. The writing process, started many months ago, was intended to be therapy in the face of the looming realization that there isn’t enough therapy in the world that can fix what is really broken. Needless to say, this rant could fill volumes with example after example if I would let it. I find the process of writing it frustrating, tedious, and probably pointless… especially given my gross inability to gracefully articulate my thoughts in light of the storm raging in my head. Exactly what is therapeutic about that I’m not sure, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

We are all taught as children that without laws there would be no society, only anarchy. Sadly, starting at early ages we in this country have been brainwashed to believe that, in return for our dedication and service, our government stands for justice for all. We are further brainwashed to believe that there is freedom in this place, and that we should be ready to lay our lives down for the noble principals represented by its founding fathers. Remember? One of these was “no taxation without representation”. I have spent the total years of my adulthood unlearning that crap from only a few years of my childhood. These days anyone who really stands up for that principal is promptly labeled a “crackpot”, traitor and worse.

While very few working people would say they haven’t had their fair share of taxes (as can I), in my lifetime I can say with a great degree of certainty that there has never been a politician cast a vote on any matter with the likes of me or my interests in mind. Nor, for that matter, are they the least bit interested in me or anything I have to say.

Why is it that a handful of thugs and plunderers can commit unthinkable atrocities (and in the case of the GM executives, for scores of years) and when it’s time for their gravy train to crash under the weight of their gluttony and overwhelming stupidity, the force of the full federal government has no difficulty coming to their aid within days if not hours? Yet at the same time, the joke we call the American medical system, including the drug and insurance companies, are murdering tens of thousands of people a year and stealing from the corpses and victims they cripple, and this country’s leaders don’t see this as important as bailing out a few of their vile, rich cronies. Yet, the political “representatives” (thieves, liars, and self-serving scumbags is far more accurate) have endless time to sit around for year after year and debate the state of the “terrible health care problem”. It’s clear they see no crisis as long as the dead people don’t get in the way of their corporate profits rolling in.

And justice? You’ve got to be kidding!

How can any rational individual explain that white elephant conundrum in the middle of our tax system and, indeed, our entire legal system? Here we have a system that is, by far, too complicated for the brightest of the master scholars to understand. Yet, it mercilessly “holds accountable” its victims, claiming that they’re responsible for fully complying with laws not even the experts understand. The law “requires” a signature on the bottom of a tax filing; yet no one can say truthfully that they understand what they are signing; if that’s not “duress” than what is. If this is not the measure of a totalitarian regime, nothing is.

How did I get here?

My introduction to the real American nightmare starts back in the early ‘80s. Unfortunately after more than 16 years of school, somewhere along the line I picked up the absurd, pompous notion that I could read and understand plain English. Some friends introduced me to a group of people who were having ‘tax code’ readings and discussions. In particular, zeroed in on a section relating to the wonderful “exemptions” that make institutions like the vulgar, corrupt Catholic Church so incredibly wealthy. We carefully studied the law (with the help of some of the “best”, high-paid, experienced tax lawyers in the business), and then began to do exactly what the “big boys” were doing (except that we weren’t steeling from our congregation or lying to the government about our massive profits in the name of God). We took a great deal of care to make it all visible, following all of the rules, exactly the way the law said it was to be done.

The intent of this exercise and our efforts was to bring about a much-needed re-evaluation of the laws that allow the monsters of organized religion to make such a mockery of people who earn an honest living. However, this is where I learned that there are two “interpretations” for every law; one for the very rich, and one for the rest of us… Oh, and the monsters are the very ones making and enforcing the laws; the inquisition is still alive and well today in this country.

That little lesson in patriotism cost me $40,000+, 10 years of my life, and set my retirement plans back to 0. It made me realize for the first time that I live in a country with an ideology that is based on a total and complete lie. It also made me realize, not only how naive I had been, but also the incredible stupidity of the American public; that they buy, hook, line, and sinker, the crap about their “freedom”… and that they continue to do so with eyes closed in the face of overwhelming evidence and all that keeps happening in front of them.

Before even having to make a shaky recovery from the sting of the first lesson on what justice really means in this country (around 1984 after making my way through engineering school and still another five years of “paying my dues”), I felt I finally had to take a chance of launching my dream of becoming an independent engineer.

On the subjects of engineers and dreams of independence, I should digress somewhat to say that I’m sure that I inherited the fascination for creative problem solving from my father. I realized this at a very young age.

The significance of independence, however, came much later during my early years of college; at the age of 18 or 19 when I was living on my own as student in an apartment in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. My neighbor was an elderly retired woman (80+ seemed ancient to me at that age) who was the widowed wife of a retired steel worker. Her husband had worked all his life in the steel mills of central Pennsylvania with promises from big business and the union that, for his 30 years of service, he would have a pension and medical care to look forward to in his retirement. Instead he was one of the thousands who got nothing because the incompetent mill management and corrupt union (not to mention the government) raided their pension funds and stole their retirement. All she had was social security to live on.

In retrospect, the situation was laughable because here I was living on peanut butter and bread (or Ritz crackers when I could afford to splurge) for months at a time. When I got to know this poor figure and heard her story I felt worse for her plight than for my own (I, after all, I thought I had everything to in front of me). I was genuinely appalled at one point, as we exchanged stories and commiserated with each other over our situations, when she in her grandmotherly fashion tried to convince me that I would be “healthier” eating cat food (like her) rather than trying to get all my substance from peanut butter and bread. I couldn’t quite go there, but the impression was made. I decided that I didn’t trust big business to take care of me, and that I would take responsibility for my own future and myself.

Return to the early ‘80s, and here I was off to a terrifying start as a ‘wet-behind-the-ears’ contract software engineer... and two years later, thanks to the fine backroom, midnight effort by the sleazy executives of Arthur Andersen (the very same folks who later brought us Enron and other such calamities) and an equally sleazy New York Senator (Patrick Moynihan), we saw the passage of 1986 tax reform act with its section 1706.

For you who are unfamiliar, here is the core text of the IRS Section 1706, defining the treatment of workers (such as contract engineers) for tax purposes. Visit this link for a conference committee report (http://www.synergistech.com/1706.shtml#ConferenceCommitteeReport) regarding the intended interpretation of Section 1706 and the relevant parts of Section 530, as amended. For information on how these laws affect technical services workers and their clients, read our discussion here (http://www.synergistech.com/ic-taxlaw.shtml).

SEC. 1706. TREATMENT OF CERTAIN TECHNICAL PERSONNEL.

(a) IN GENERAL - Section 530 of the Revenue Act of 1978 is amended by adding at the end thereof the following new subsection:

(d) EXCEPTION. - This section shall not apply in the case of an individual who pursuant to an arrangement between the taxpayer and another person, provides services for such other person as an engineer, designer, drafter, computer programmer, systems analyst, or other similarly skilled worker engaged in a similar line of work.

(b) EFFECTIVE DATE. - The amendment made by this section shall apply to remuneration paid and services rendered after December 31, 1986.

Note:

· "another person" is the client in the traditional job-shop relationship.

· "taxpayer" is the recruiter, broker, agency, or job shop.

· "individual", "employee", or "worker" is you.



Admittedly, you need to read the treatment to understand what it is saying but it’s not very complicated. The bottom line is that they may as well have put my name right in the text of section (d). Moreover, they could only have been more blunt if they would have came out and directly declared me a criminal and non-citizen slave. Twenty years later, I still can’t believe my eyes.

During 1987, I spent close to $5000 of my ‘pocket change’, and at least 1000 hours of my time writing, printing, and mailing to any senator, congressman, governor, or slug that might listen; none did, and they universally treated me as if I was wasting their time. I spent countless hours on the L.A. freeways driving to meetings and any and all of the disorganized professional groups who were attempting to mount a campaign against this atrocity. This, only to discover that our efforts were being easily derailed by a few moles from the brokers who were just beginning to enjoy the windfall from the new declaration of their “freedom”. Oh, and don’t forget, for all of the time I was spending on this, I was loosing income that I couldn’t bill clients.

After months of struggling it had clearly gotten to be a futile exercise. The best we could get for all of our trouble is a pronouncement from an IRS mouthpiece that they weren’t going to enforce that provision (read harass engineers and scientists). This immediately proved to be a lie, and the mere existence of the regulation began to have its impact on my bottom line; this, of course, was the intended effect.

Again, rewind my retirement plans back to 0 and shift them into idle. If I had any sense, I clearly should have left abandoned engineering and never looked back.

Instead I got busy working 100-hour workweeks. Then came the L.A. depression of the early 1990s. Our leaders decided that they didn’t need the all of those extra Air Force bases they had in Southern California, so they were closed; just like that. The result was economic devastation in the region that rivaled the widely publicized Texas S&L fiasco. However, because the government caused it, no one gave a shit about all of the young families who lost their homes or street after street of boarded up houses abandoned to the wealthy loan companies who received government funds to “shore up” their windfall. Again, I lost my retirement.
(continued in next post - it's too long for the max allowed here)

[WashingtonBay]

Continuation:

Years later, after weathering a divorce and the constant struggle trying to build some momentum with my business, I find myself once again beginning to finally pick up some speed. Then came the .COM bust and the 911 nightmare. Our leaders decided that all aircraft were grounded for what seemed like an eternity; and long after that, ‘special’ facilities like San Francisco were on security alert for months. This made access to my customers prohibitively expensive. Ironically, after what they had done the Government came to the aid of the airlines with billions of our tax dollars … as usual they left me to rot and die while they bailed out their rich, incompetent cronies WITH MY MONEY! After these events, there went my business but not quite yet all of my retirement and savings.

By this time, I’m thinking that it might be good for a change. Bye to California, I’ll try Austin for a while. So I moved, only to find out that this is a place with a highly inflated sense of self-importance and where damn little real engineering work is done. I’ve never experienced such a hard time finding work. The rates are 1/3 of what I was earning before the crash, because pay rates here are fixed by the three or four large companies in the area who are in collusion to drive down prices and wages… and this happens because the justice department is all on the take and doesn’t give a fuck about serving anyone or anything but themselves and their rich buddies.

To survive, I was forced to cannibalize my savings and retirement, the last of which was a small IRA. This came in a year with mammoth expenses and not a single dollar of income. I filed no return that year thinking that because I didn’t have any income there was no need. The sleazy government decided that they disagreed. But they didn’t notify me in time for me to launch a legal objection so when I attempted to get a protest filed with the court I was told I was no longer entitled to due process because the time to file ran out. Bend over for another $10,000 helping of justice.

So now we come to the present. After my experience with the CPA world, following the business crash I swore that I’d never enter another accountant’s office again. But here I am with a new marriage and a boatload of undocumented income, not to mention an expensive new business asset, a piano, which I had no idea how to handle. After considerable thought I decided that it would be irresponsible NOT to get professional help; a very big mistake.

When we received the forms back I was very optimistic that they were in order. I had taken all of the years information to Bill Ross, and he came back with results very similar to what I was expecting. Except that he had neglected to include the contents of Sheryl’s unreported income; $12,700 worth of it. To make matters worse, Ross knew all along this was missing and I didn’t have a clue until he pointed it out in the middle of the audit. By that time it had become brutally evident that he was representing himself and not me.

This left me stuck in the middle of this disaster trying to defend transactions that have no relationship to anything tax-related (at least the tax-related transactions were poorly documented). Things I never knew anything about and things my wife had no clue would ever matter to anyone. The end result is… well, just look around.

I remember reading about the stock market crash before the “great” depression and how there were wealthy bankers and businessmen jumping out of windows when they realized they screwed up and lost everything. Isn’t it ironic how far we’ve come in 60 years in this country that they now know how to fix that little economic problem; they just steal from the middle class (who doesn’t have any say in it, elections are a joke) to cover their asses and it’s “business-as-usual”. Now when the wealthy fuck up, the poor get to die for the mistakes… isn’t that a clever, tidy solution.

As government agencies go, the FAA is often justifiably referred to as a tombstone agency, though they are hardly alone. The recent presidential puppet GW Bush and his cronies in their eight years certainly reinforced for all of us that this criticism rings equally true for all of the government. Nothing changes unless there is a body count (unless it is in the interest of the wealthy sows at the government trough). In a government full of hypocrites from top to bottom, life is as cheap as their lies and their self-serving laws.

I know I’m hardly the first one to decide I have had all I can stand. It has always been a myth that people have stopped dying for their freedom in this country, and it isn’t limited to the blacks, and poor immigrants. I know there have been countless before me and there are sure to be as many after. But I also know that by not adding my body to the count, I insure nothing will change. I choose to not keep looking over my shoulder at “big brother” while he strips my carcass, I choose not to ignore what is going on all around me, I choose not to pretend that business as usual won’t continue; I have just had enough.

I can only hope that the numbers quickly get too big to be white washed and ignored that the American zombies wake up and revolt; it will take nothing less. I would only hope that by striking a nerve that stimulates the inevitable double standard, knee-jerk government reaction that results in more stupid draconian restrictions people wake up and begin to see the pompous political thugs and their mindless minions for what they are. Sadly, though I spent my entire life trying to believe it wasn’t so, but violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer. The cruel joke is that the really big chunks of shit at the top have known this all along and have been laughing, at and using this awareness against, fools like me all along.

I saw it written once that the definition of insanity is repeating the same process over and over and expecting the outcome to suddenly be different. I am finally ready to stop this insanity. Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let’s try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well.



The communist creed: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed.



Joe Stack (1956-2010)

02/18/2010

[mare]

Now party members can start pointing fingers at each other.

So sad for his family and for those he injured. The arrogance of him. Did he really think that doing this will make the government think along the lines of "Wow, maybe we're pushing too hard?" Did he really think the poor folks working at an Austin, TX branch of the Fed government have anything to do with making policy?

Obviously not a rational person.

[Vacker Hast]

Sadly, Joe Stack is correct for the most part as I worked for the IRS in the early 90's then trasferred into the USPS and, also, became a Union Steward for one of the largest Unions in our Country. I saw and dealt with all of this on many platforms that Joe describes. It's a possibility that it will be revealed later that the IRS had liens on all his assets including his house and he wanted to make sure the IRS got as little as possible other than his life.

It's very unfortunate that he not only took his own life but tried to take so many others with him. It's clear Joe was a very intelligent man but he was wronged by auditors, appeal officers, accountants etc. I have seen this first hand and by the time you fight and may possibly have a somewhat positive outcome; the lengthy process has already caused you to loose everything including your home, your family, your income, your clients, your savings, any and all vehicles, your personal home furniture auctioned, your business....you get the picture...EVERYTHING!!! The IRS has that authority and they really target the middle class that is thier daily bread and butter that are not able to fight back....very very sad for all.

Stacy

[Ragnar Danneskjold]

I read through his little screed earlier today. Bottom line: He's just a lunatic. And apparently a tax cheating lunatic, at that, who got caught. There's so much in that screed that he blithely skips over without actually saying what happened.

At least it looks like (at last check anyway) that he didn't take out anybody else with him. Did they find that person that was unaccounted for? I've been in meetings all day and haven't been able to keep up.

[Ol Man River]

i disagree RD, a lunatic didn't write that letter. A person
backed into a corner and didn't see any other way out.

You chase a racoon out in the open and it will try to run away
you get that same racoon cornered and you better have some
bandaids ready. Humans are not evolved enough yet to be past
that turning point to not act like a cornered racoon.

and with the way I have heard the IRS treats people under their
thumb, I can understand how the guy felt. I do not condone
the final resolution he took, But I think I can understand his feeling
of no other choises.

Look at obama's politicial nominees, how many of them withdrew
because of tax problems. all they had to do was pay the taxes
they didn't have any property seized not even bank accounts.
And I think as this story unfolds more, the IRS had probably already
did the seizers of his property and bank accounts.
The IRS presumes you are guilty, unlike the 4th admenment that
presumes you are innocent until proven guilty.

V.H. explained the tactics well.

[Ragnar Danneskjold]

i disagree RD, a lunatic didn't write that letter. A person
backed into a corner and didn't see any other way out.

[...]

Yah, I can see that point of view. I just don't see it here in this guy. Sure... that's what he thinks his situation is. But I see a guy who's been a tax cheat all his life (just based on little hints in the way he says things, or omits things). He got caught and is taking out his frustration on everybody from big business to the Catholic church to his accountant. He's been stewing on this hate of his for a long, long time and it's got him twisted out of all rationality. That it's all his fault is something he just couldn't deal with. IMHO.

Maybe I'm wrong. But I feel zero sympathy for him. He tried to kill lots of people in that building, not even counting the wife and daughter he left in a burning house.

[Vacker Hast]

Maybe I'm wrong. But I feel zero sympathy for him. He tried to kill lots of people in that building, not even counting the wife and daughter he left in a burning house.

First, he did NOT leave his wife and daughter in a burning house. He and his wife argued and the wife and daughter left just after midnight and they were safe in a hotel. This may have caused his breaking point and I believe they probably argued over finances (IRS). He made it clear that it was "unreported income" from him and his wife. I would have to write a novel to explain all the inside knowledge I have and how this could easily happen with a bad accountant and wife with prior years of unreported income that he had no knowledge of. There is no statute of limitations on unreported income so his wife's prior unreported income may have been found from years back that they had no idea of and now have penalties and interest piled on top of the original taxes due.

By Federal IRS codes every person is supposed to be audited every three years but in past years the IRS has not had the budget/personnel to keep these quotas. Just recently it was announced the IRS will be getting what they need for enforcement.

I believe Joe Stack was an intelligent man but his last acts were that of a man in the middle of a complete breakdown which is very sad for all. I do not condone his last acts at all.

RD, I don't know your age but if an IRS Auditor went back and checked all your many years of income (let's say twenty-five years) would they find a mistake or two? Do you know the many tax codes for each and every year with all the changes to be able to fight a brutal system? Just a very small thing to consider!

I'm sure more will come out but the Federal Government will try to bury it.

Stacy

[Sundays Man]

Well, I guess his motives won't be a mystery for long then.

EW... FWIW, I agree with you on our freedom to own and rent planes and that it should be cherished. I was a pilot too, once, I am long rusty now, but I went to school to fly, have my single, multi and instructor ratings. It was what I was going to do with my life, before I made a couple detours and never made it back.

So with that perspective and a history of being able to rent planes myself, I have long been aware it's a bit of a hole in our 'security'. But it's one that many, myself included, would fight to defend the status quo on, it would be a shame if it got to the point where people had to go through a lot of red tape to fly.

I don't know if your reply was sparked by my comments or not but if so, I wasn't talking about the right to rent planes, etc. It is the fact that is was too easy for those who trained and rented planes to plan the 9-11 attack and I still think they would be able to go "somewhere" if not many places and do the same again and not an eyebrow raised. It's the fact that we AREN'T profiling (because of political correctness) that gets my blood boiling. I would fight for the right to fly, so to speak, as strongly as i would the right to own and bear arms.

[Sundays Man]

It was good to hear that the wife and kid were not at home. I'm sure the burning of the house was to tell the IRS "here take the thing...what's left of it anyway".

[Vacker Hast]

It was good to hear that the wife and kid were not at home. I'm sure the burning of the house was to tell the IRS "here take the thing...what's left of it anyway".

Yes, the house and his plane. That was his plane and he didn't want them to have that either.

Stacy

[Ol Man River]

A trusted source has told this office that the FBI knew Austin was going to be attacked today and had dispatched officers from its Dallas headquarters yesterday afternoon to be in place for today’s incident.
The source claims that a confidential memo was circulated yesterday detailing that a building in Austin was going to be the target of an attack today. He was told this by an informant who works in the Dallas FBI office.
Four FBI agents hurriedly left the Dallas office yesterday to be ready and on the scene for the aftermath of the incident, according to the informant, who was shaken when he saw events unfolding today and put two and two together.
We cannot confirm the accuracy of the claim but the source is known to us and has no motivation for inventing the story.
The fact that pilot Joe Stack changed his manifesto at least 27 times (http://www.prisonplanet.com/joseph-andrew-stack-revised-his-death-letter-27-times-before-settling-on-the-final-draft.html) before the final version suggests that he had been writing it for days and this could have been what tipped off the FBI in the build up to the attack.
The claim dovetails with reports we are receiving from Austin residents that the FBI were immediately on the scene after the plane crash and were filming both the building and eyewitnesses.

A separate witness told KXAN News (http://www.prisonplanet.com/eyewitness-hazmat-teams-in-place-before-plane-crash.html)that there were Hazmat teams and fire trucks in place across the street before the plane struck the building.
Infowars reporters who spoke to neighbors at Stack’s house, which he had burned down before crashing the plane, expressed surprise at how quick emergency services responded to the fire. One neighbor, named Elbert, said that emergency crews arrived five minutes after he made the 911 call.
Whether the attack was the work of a lone individual or part of a larger set-up, the aftermath is being exploited to the full by the corporate media and people like Glenn Beck, who are blaming the incident on Constitutionalists and the liberty movement (http://www.prisonplanet.com/time-magazine-blames-kamikaze-attack-on-tea-party-mentality.html), implying that anyone who shares any of the grievances outlined in Stack’s lengthy manifesto are also intent on crashing planes into buildings.
Of course, the previous staged terror attack, the Christmas Day underwear bomber incident, was proven to be a set-up and the authorities repeatedly had to change their cover story after eyewitness Kurt Haskell, who was initially derided by the media, was eventually proven right in the fact that the bomber was allowed to board Flight 253 (http://detnews.com/article/20100127/NATION/1270405/Terror-suspect-kept-visa-to-avoid-tipping-off-larger-investigation) by order of the State Department.
Authorities were similarly prepared in advance of the 9/11 attacks in New York City. As part of the Tripod II exercise (http://www.911research.wtc7.net/planes/defense/wargames.html), FEMA deployed on September 10 to set up a command post at Pier 29 supposedly in preparation for a biowarfare exercise scheduled for September 12.
We are providing the following tip line for people in Austin to send their eyewitness and news tips about this incident to us.

[WashingtonBay]

We cannot confirm the accuracy of the claim but the source is known to us and has no motivation for inventing the story.


No can ever confirm the accuracy of these conspiracy theories, and no one ever has a motivation for them, and yet, they pop up faster than all the pre-warned G-men at every single event like this, don't they?

Good grief. The FBI building is right next door to this one is it not? How long is it supposed to take them to get there?

Fire trucks to the house within five minutes is not a miracle of conspiracy dimensions, and neither are the presence of FBI men or people with cameras, or hazmat trucks, in the vicinity of a these federal offices where they may very well be based.


Think about this... if the FBI has tangible actionable prewarning of an attack by this guy, they would have ARRESTED HIM. Do you really doubt that?

[Vacker Hast]

WB, you are absolutely correct and I know you don't need to hear that from me but I'm just completely in agreement with you!!!

As for the constitutionalists and the liberty movement, these have been around for many many years without violence ... they need to point their dirty finger somewhere don't they?!?!

Stacy

[Sundays Man]

Wasn't there some guy in Germany, I believe it was, that started blaming everything bad on the Jews. That didn't turn out well if I remember correctly.

[Ol Man River]

from what i have read, the irs, the fbi and the cia were in the same building.

there is not a fire dept. building next to this business center.

the link about the witness on the local news interview. bold underline.

as far as conspiracy theories, do you know that there is still files about
Lincolns assination still sealed, Why are there still sealed files about Kennedys
assination?

true, his rewritting of his manifesto (which was done in Microsoft word)
being said was rewritten 27 times could have tipped off the FBI, You would
have thought they would have had at least gone and talked to him.

but as the facts show, they let the bomber on the detroit plane from Amsterdam

all conspiracy theories do contain certain facts, the job is to read all the articles from
all points of view and then ask your own questions.

Only a few days ago Biden said that the next attack would not be from
a group like Al Quida, but from a single person.

also if you look back on recent history, more and more these events have
happened after the government or others seem to have said things or from
some unquoted person has set up the scene for a month or two with warning
of some sort.

People in hi places have done this sort of stuff for ages. Look at england in
WWII . The english had broken the german code, but instead of evacuating
an english town they let the people be bombed by the Germans, why, to have
evacuated the city would have tipped off the germans that the english knew
they were planning a bombing raid.

Heck even Pearl Harbour, Roosevelt and a few others knew the US had broken
the Japanise code. Did they give any warnings, or even put out to be a
heightened alert just in case, because of the radio traffic they had interseptided.
or even the submarine that was reported and sank by a US destroyer prior to
that terrible morning at Pearl.

To not do your own research into the theories and take apart the articles
read the witness reports from different articles, and see if the questions
that conspiracy theorists ask are completely irrelavent. Or if they need answering.

[Vacker Hast]

SM,

That is not what is happening here. Many countries have had dictators with an ill stronghold on the people but that is a completely different subject.

I believe this was a tragic lone act out of desperation. I could be wrong and we will see in the near future what the investigation brings about. I am positive of one thing, we WILL NOT get the full unbiased truth.

Stacy

[Ol Man River]

Wasn't there some guy in Germany, I believe it was, that started blaming everything bad on the Jews. That didn't turn out well if I remember correctly.

yea but after he removed all of the opposition party heads.
The Night of the Long Knifes as it was called.

then Hilter needed to get the german people behind him, he
singled out a group of people to hate.


but hasn't the Dept of Homeland Security called the tea partiers
birthers and conspiracy theories, Terrorists.

I believe Pelosi and Reid have also referred to that term also.

[WashingtonBay]

What I know is that there's a part of the vivid imaginations of some that wants to think life is always like a Hollywood movie, with all kinds of twists and turns and shadowy figures and conspiracies... As a creative outlet for writers of fiction, it's healthy. As a way of finding explanations of every daily event, it's actually diseased thinking, not critical thinking.

And it's always the same... It's only the names that change. And the diversion and bafflecrap is always the same. If we shoot down one conspiracy, you pop back up with five more, from Lincoln to Pearl Harbor, as if your mere ability to ask questions and raise suspicion is proof there is call for suspicion.

What there is here, is a recent story with lots of vauge, incorrect, incomplete reports of events and perceptions of events. The bad guy is probably the guy who wrote a long manifesto, edited it and obsessed on it for however many edits it took, and then proceded to post it and fly his plane into a building. Why you'd rather think the villain is the FBI GMen and not the man flyin' the plane, is beyond me.

[Sundays Man]

SM,

That is not what is happening here. Many countries have had dictators with an ill stronghold on the people but that is a completely different subject.

I believe this was a tragic lone act out of desperation. I could be wrong and we will see in the near future what the investigation brings about. I am positive of one thing, we WILL NOT get the full unbiased truth.

Stacy

I understand. I was only pushing the point that in Germany the media was used to spread those sorts of thoughts. It's not about this one incident, it's about the fact that every time something like this happens you get the finger pointing (on both sides of the spectrum). How absurd to say that the Tea Party or Glenn Beck or Donald Duck followers are behind these sorts of things. The scary part is that there are nuts out there who believe it and this will only serve to create more and more hate and discontent between two already hoplessly divided groups. We need to be united and we really don't have that unity at this point. I know we aren't Germany and I know we aren't dealing with what Germany was then, at least not yet. But those types of statements always tends to inflame one of the two factions. That is not what we need in these times. Most of the media is obviously in bed with and a tool for the progressives and they wield it like a sword. Just mho.

[Ol Man River]

What I know is that there's a part of the vivid imaginations of some that wants to think life is always like a Hollywood movie, with all kinds of twists and turns and shadowy figures and conspiracies... As a creative outlet for writers of fiction, it's healthy. As a way of finding explanations of every daily event, it's actually diseased thinking, not critical thinking.

And it's always the same... It's only the names that change. And the diversion and bafflecrap is always the same. If we shoot down one conspiracy, you pop back up with five more, from Lincoln to Pearl Harbor, as if your mere ability to ask questions and raise suspicion is proof there is call for suspicion.

What there is here, is a recent story with lots of vauge, incorrect, incomplete reports of events and perceptions of events. The bad guy is probably the guy who wrote a long manifesto, edited it and obsessed on it for however many edits it took, and then proceded to post it and fly his plane into a building. Why you'd rather think the villain is the FBI GMen and not the man flyin' the plane, is beyond me.



so none of the things I cited happened then it is all from diseased thinking.

I am concerned for the security of our great Nation; not so much because of any threat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within.
Douglas MacArthur (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/d/douglasmac142436.html)

[WashingtonBay]

so none of the things I cited happened then it is all from diseased thinking.


Some of them happened. There was a big long manifesto written by a desperate man, there was a plane crash and some fires and fire trucks, and FBI men, and cameras. They were all there.

The diseased part is seeing these events take place in plain sight in their simplest and most obvious sequence, and choosing to believe (or at least consider) anything BUT that, no matter how convoluted or unsubstantiated.

[Arrow]

Interesting NYT editorial this morning--

February 28, 2010
Op-Ed Columnist
The Axis of the Obsessed and Deranged
By FRANK RICH

No one knows what history will make of the present — least of all journalists, who can at best write history’s sloppy first draft. But if I were to place an incautious bet on which political event will prove the most significant of February 2010, I wouldn’t choose the kabuki health care summit that generated all the ink and 24/7 cable chatter in Washington. I’d put my money instead on the murder-suicide of Andrew Joseph Stack III, the tax protester who flew a plane into an office building housing Internal Revenue Service employees in Austin, Tex., on Feb. 18. It was a flare with the dark afterlife of an omen.

What made that kamikaze mission eventful was less the deranged act itself than the curious reaction of politicians on the right who gave it a pass — or, worse, flirted with condoning it. Stack was a lone madman, and it would be both glib and inaccurate to call him a card-carrying Tea Partier or a “Tea Party terrorist.” But he did leave behind a manifesto whose frothing anti-government, anti-tax rage overlaps with some of those marching under the Tea Party banner. That rant inspired like-minded Americans to create instant Facebook shrines to his martyrdom. Soon enough, some cowed politicians, including the newly minted Tea Party hero Scott Brown, were publicly empathizing with Stack’s credo — rather than risk crossing the most unforgiving brigade in their base.

Representative Steve King, Republican of Iowa, even rationalized Stack’s crime. “It’s sad the incident in Texas happened,” he said, “but by the same token, it’s an agency that is unnecessary. And when the day comes when that is over and we abolish the I.R.S., it’s going to be a happy day for America.” No one in King’s caucus condemned these remarks. Then again, what King euphemized as “the incident” took out just 1 of the 200 workers in the Austin building: Vernon Hunter, a 68-year-old Vietnam veteran nearing his I.R.S. retirement. Had Stack the devastating weaponry and timing to match the death toll of 168 inflicted by Timothy McVeigh on a federal building in Oklahoma in 1995, maybe a few of the congressman’s peers would have cried foul.

It is not glib or inaccurate to invoke Oklahoma City in this context, because the acrid stench of 1995 is back in the air. Two days before Stack’s suicide mission, The Times published David Barstow’s chilling, months-long investigation of the Tea Party movement. Anyone who was cognizant during the McVeigh firestorm would recognize the old warning signs re-emerging from the mists of history. The Patriot movement. “The New World Order,” with its shadowy conspiracies hatched by the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission. Sandpoint, Idaho. White supremacists. Militias.

Barstow confirmed what the Southern Poverty Law Center had found in its report last year: the unhinged and sometimes armed anti-government right that was thought to have vaporized after its Oklahoma apotheosis is making a comeback. And now it is finding common cause with some elements of the diverse, far-flung and still inchoate Tea Party movement. All it takes is a few self-styled “patriots” to sow havoc.

Equally significant is Barstow’s finding that most Tea Party groups have no affiliation with the G.O.P. despite the party’s ham-handed efforts to co-opt them. The more we learn about the Tea Partiers, the more we can see why. They loathe John McCain and the free-spending, TARP-tainted presidency of George W. Bush. They really do hate all of Washington, and if they hate Obama more than the Republican establishment, it’s only by a hair or two. (Were Obama not earning extra demerits in some circles for his race, it might be a dead heat.) The Tea Partiers want to eliminate most government agencies, starting with the Fed and the I.R.S., and end spending on entitlement programs. They are not to be confused with the Party of No holding forth in Washington — a party that, after all, is now positioning itself as a defender of Medicare spending. What we are talking about here is the Party of No Government at All.

The distinction between the Tea Party movement and the official G.O.P. is real, and we ignore it at our peril. While Washington is fixated on the natterings of Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Michael Steele and the presumed 2012 Republican presidential front-runner, Mitt Romney, these and the other leaders of the Party of No are anathema or irrelevant to most Tea Partiers. Indeed, McConnell, Romney and company may prove largely irrelevant to the overall political dynamic taking hold in America right now. The old G.O.P. guard has no discernible national constituency beyond the scattered, often impotent remnants of aging country club Republicanism. The passion on the right has migrated almost entirely to the Tea Party’s counterconservatism.

The leaders embraced by the new grass roots right are a different slate entirely: Glenn Beck, Ron Paul and Sarah Palin. Simple math dictates that none of this trio can be elected president. As George F. Will recently pointed out, Palin will not even be the G.O.P. nominee “unless the party wants to lose at least 44 states” (as it did in Barry Goldwater’s 1964 Waterloo). But these leaders do have a consistent ideology, and that ideology plays to the lock-and-load nutcases out there, not just to the peaceable (if riled up) populist conservatives also attracted to Tea Partyism. This ideology is far more troubling than the boilerplate corporate conservatism and knee-jerk obstructionism of the anti-Obama G.O.P. Congressional minority.

In the days after Stack’s Austin attack, the gradually coalescing Tea Party dogma had its Washington coming out party at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), across town from Capitol Hill. The most rapturously received speaker was Beck, who likened the G.O.P. to an alcoholic in need of a 12-step program to recover from its “progressive-lite” collusion with federal government. Beck vilified an unnamed Republican whose favorite president was the progressive Theodore Roosevelt — that would be McCain — and ominously labeled progressivism a cancer that “must be cut out of the system.”

A co-sponsor of CPAC was the John Birch Society, another far-right organization that has re-emerged after years of hibernation. Its views, which William F. Buckley Jr. decried in the 1960s as an “idiotic” and “irrational” threat to true conservatism, remain unchanged. At the conference’s conclusion, a presidential straw poll was won by Congressman Paul, ending a three-year Romney winning streak. No less an establishment conservative observer than the Wall Street Journal editorialist Dorothy Rabinowitz describes Paul’s followers as “conspiracy theorists, anti-government zealots, 9/11 truthers, and assorted other cadres of the obsessed and deranged.”

William Kristol dismissed the straw poll results as the youthful folly of Paul’s jejune college fans. William Bennett gingerly pooh-poohed Beck’s anti-G.O.P. diatribe. But in truth, most of the CPAC speakers, including presidential aspirants, were so eager to ingratiate themselves with this claque that they endorsed the Beck-Paul vision rather than, say, defend Bush, McCain or the party’s Congressional leadership. (It surely didn’t help Romney’s straw poll showing that he was the rare Bush defender.) And so — just one day after Stack crashed his plane into the Austin I.R.S. office — the heretofore milquetoast former Minnesota governor, Tim Pawlenty, told the audience to emulate Tiger Woods’s wife and “take a 9-iron and smash the window out of big government in this country.”

Such violent imagery and invective, once largely confined to blogs and talk radio, is now spreading among Republicans in public office or aspiring to it. Last year Michele Bachmann, the redoubtable Tea Party hero and Minnesota congresswoman, set the pace by announcing that she wanted “people in Minnesota armed and dangerous” to oppose Obama administration climate change initiatives. In Texas, the Tea Party favorite for governor, Debra Medina, is positioning herself to the right of the incumbent, Rick Perry — no mean feat given that Perry has suggested that Texas could secede from the union. A state sovereignty zealot, Medina reminded those at a rally that “the tree of freedom is occasionally watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots.”

In the heyday of 1960s left-wing radicalism, no liberal Democratic politicians in Washington could be found endorsing groups preaching violent revolution. The right has a different history. In the months before McVeigh’s mass murder, Helen Chenoweth and Steve Stockman, then representing Idaho and Texas in Congress, publicly empathized with the conspiracy theories of the far right that fueled his anti-government obsessions.

In his Times article on the Tea Party right, Barstow profiled Pam Stout, a once apolitical Idaho retiree who cast her lot with a Tea Party group allied with Beck’s 9/12 Project, the Birch Society and the Oath Keepers, a rising militia group of veterans and former law enforcement officers who champion disregarding laws they oppose. She frets that “another civil war” may be in the offing. “I don’t see us being the ones to start it,” she told Barstow, “but I would give up my life for my country.”

Whether consciously or coincidentally, Stout was echoing Palin’s memorable final declaration during her appearance at the National Tea Party Convention earlier this month: “I will live, I will die for the people of America, whatever I can do to help.” It’s enough to make you wonder who is palling around with terrorists now.

[WashingtonBay]

Interesting post from Democratic Underground, about the Frank Rich article:

Said it as well as I can, and I didn't even have to read the whole article or form my own thoughts about it... :)

4. This is a quite a stretch... Other than hating the IRS (after having tried to avoid paying his taxes), there is precious little in Stack's manifesto to indicate he would have anything much in common at all with virtually any group on the right.

There are not many Tea Party types who are anti capitalist, are FOR healthcare reform, and hate organized religion.

The libertarian types that have begun to dominate CPAC are much more along the lines of the "South Park Republican". Anti IRS? Yup. Anti organized religion? Some, maybe. But anti-capitalist and pro health care reform? Most certainly not.

Lastly, while Ron Paul is a nut, and his poll spamming followers are pretty devoted - much like Larouchies, they are very often a more tolerant breed of "conservative". Many are anti-war, oppose moral laws (ie, drug laws), etc. In fact, as far as social policy goes, a lot of these libertarian conservatives might fit in just fine on DU. This younger breed of libertarian conservative type tend to be for marriage equality, more tolerant of differences in general (race, religion, etc), oppose "Moral Majority" type religious policy, etc.

I really think Rich is reaching pretty far here to try to somehow connect the Tea Party, CPAC and Joe Stack all together. Stack's diatribe just doesn't match the Tea Party or CPAC agenda at all.

I guess one could argue that hatred for the government in general may rise to the point it causes a spike in violent incidents, that could be true. But not only does Stack's manifesto not match up at all with many/any groups on the right, most of them would not endorse suicide missions into government buildings. Quite frankly, they just aren't the suicidal type.

The Axis of the Obsessed and Deranged, By FRANK RICH <-- *READ THIS* - Democratic Underground (http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x201958)

[natisha]

between two already hoplessly divided groups. We need to be united and we really don't have that unity at this point. I won't unite with those of whom I am in complete disagreement with. I wouldn't want anyone to put their beliefs aside to look like a team player.

[natisha]

Interesting NYT editorial this morning--

February 28, 2010
Op-Ed Columnist
The Axis of the Obsessed and Deranged
By FRANK RICH

No one knows what history will make of the present — least of all journalists, who can at best write history’s sloppy first draft. But if I were to place an incautious bet on which political event will prove the most significant of February 2010, I wouldn’t choose the kabuki health care summit that generated all the ink and 24/7 cable chatter in Washington. I’d put my money instead on the murder-suicide of Andrew Joseph Stack III, the tax protester who flew a plane into an office building housing Internal Revenue Service employees in Austin, Tex., on Feb. 18. It was a flare with the dark afterlife of an omen.

What made that kamikaze mission eventful was less the deranged act itself than the curious reaction of politicians on the right who gave it a pass — or, worse, flirted with condoning it. Stack was a lone madman, and it would be both glib and inaccurate to call him a card-carrying Tea Partier or a “Tea Party terrorist.” But he did leave behind a manifesto whose frothing anti-government, anti-tax rage overlaps with some of those marching under the Tea Party banner. That rant inspired like-minded Americans to create instant Facebook shrines to his martyrdom. Soon enough, some cowed politicians, including the newly minted Tea Party hero Scott Brown, were publicly empathizing with Stack’s credo — rather than risk crossing the most unforgiving brigade in their base.

Representative Steve King, Republican of Iowa, even rationalized Stack’s crime. “It’s sad the incident in Texas happened,” he said, “but by the same token, it’s an agency that is unnecessary. And when the day comes when that is over and we abolish the I.R.S., it’s going to be a happy day for America.” No one in King’s caucus condemned these remarks. Then again, what King euphemized as “the incident” took out just 1 of the 200 workers in the Austin building: Vernon Hunter, a 68-year-old Vietnam veteran nearing his I.R.S. retirement. Had Stack the devastating weaponry and timing to match the death toll of 168 inflicted by Timothy McVeigh on a federal building in Oklahoma in 1995, maybe a few of the congressman’s peers would have cried foul.

It is not glib or inaccurate to invoke Oklahoma City in this context, because the acrid stench of 1995 is back in the air. Two days before Stack’s suicide mission, The Times published David Barstow’s chilling, months-long investigation of the Tea Party movement. Anyone who was cognizant during the McVeigh firestorm would recognize the old warning signs re-emerging from the mists of history. The Patriot movement. “The New World Order,” with its shadowy conspiracies hatched by the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission. Sandpoint, Idaho. White supremacists. Militias.

Barstow confirmed what the Southern Poverty Law Center had found in its report last year: the unhinged and sometimes armed anti-government right that was thought to have vaporized after its Oklahoma apotheosis is making a comeback. And now it is finding common cause with some elements of the diverse, far-flung and still inchoate Tea Party movement. All it takes is a few self-styled “patriots” to sow havoc.

Equally significant is Barstow’s finding that most Tea Party groups have no affiliation with the G.O.P. despite the party’s ham-handed efforts to co-opt them. The more we learn about the Tea Partiers, the more we can see why. They loathe John McCain and the free-spending, TARP-tainted presidency of George W. Bush. They really do hate all of Washington, and if they hate Obama more than the Republican establishment, it’s only by a hair or two. (Were Obama not earning extra demerits in some circles for his race, it might be a dead heat.) The Tea Partiers want to eliminate most government agencies, starting with the Fed and the I.R.S., and end spending on entitlement programs. They are not to be confused with the Party of No holding forth in Washington — a party that, after all, is now positioning itself as a defender of Medicare spending. What we are talking about here is the Party of No Government at All.

The distinction between the Tea Party movement and the official G.O.P. is real, and we ignore it at our peril. While Washington is fixated on the natterings of Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Michael Steele and the presumed 2012 Republican presidential front-runner, Mitt Romney, these and the other leaders of the Party of No are anathema or irrelevant to most Tea Partiers. Indeed, McConnell, Romney and company may prove largely irrelevant to the overall political dynamic taking hold in America right now. The old G.O.P. guard has no discernible national constituency beyond the scattered, often impotent remnants of aging country club Republicanism. The passion on the right has migrated almost entirely to the Tea Party’s counterconservatism.

The leaders embraced by the new grass roots right are a different slate entirely: Glenn Beck, Ron Paul and Sarah Palin. Simple math dictates that none of this trio can be elected president. As George F. Will recently pointed out, Palin will not even be the G.O.P. nominee “unless the party wants to lose at least 44 states” (as it did in Barry Goldwater’s 1964 Waterloo). But these leaders do have a consistent ideology, and that ideology plays to the lock-and-load nutcases out there, not just to the peaceable (if riled up) populist conservatives also attracted to Tea Partyism. This ideology is far more troubling than the boilerplate corporate conservatism and knee-jerk obstructionism of the anti-Obama G.O.P. Congressional minority.

In the days after Stack’s Austin attack, the gradually coalescing Tea Party dogma had its Washington coming out party at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), across town from Capitol Hill. The most rapturously received speaker was Beck, who likened the G.O.P. to an alcoholic in need of a 12-step program to recover from its “progressive-lite” collusion with federal government. Beck vilified an unnamed Republican whose favorite president was the progressive Theodore Roosevelt — that would be McCain — and ominously labeled progressivism a cancer that “must be cut out of the system.”

A co-sponsor of CPAC was the John Birch Society, another far-right organization that has re-emerged after years of hibernation. Its views, which William F. Buckley Jr. decried in the 1960s as an “idiotic” and “irrational” threat to true conservatism, remain unchanged. At the conference’s conclusion, a presidential straw poll was won by Congressman Paul, ending a three-year Romney winning streak. No less an establishment conservative observer than the Wall Street Journal editorialist Dorothy Rabinowitz describes Paul’s followers as “conspiracy theorists, anti-government zealots, 9/11 truthers, and assorted other cadres of the obsessed and deranged.”

William Kristol dismissed the straw poll results as the youthful folly of Paul’s jejune college fans. William Bennett gingerly pooh-poohed Beck’s anti-G.O.P. diatribe. But in truth, most of the CPAC speakers, including presidential aspirants, were so eager to ingratiate themselves with this claque that they endorsed the Beck-Paul vision rather than, say, defend Bush, McCain or the party’s Congressional leadership. (It surely didn’t help Romney’s straw poll showing that he was the rare Bush defender.) And so — just one day after Stack crashed his plane into the Austin I.R.S. office — the heretofore milquetoast former Minnesota governor, Tim Pawlenty, told the audience to emulate Tiger Woods’s wife and “take a 9-iron and smash the window out of big government in this country.”

Such violent imagery and invective, once largely confined to blogs and talk radio, is now spreading among Republicans in public office or aspiring to it. Last year Michele Bachmann, the redoubtable Tea Party hero and Minnesota congresswoman, set the pace by announcing that she wanted “people in Minnesota armed and dangerous” to oppose Obama administration climate change initiatives. In Texas, the Tea Party favorite for governor, Debra Medina, is positioning herself to the right of the incumbent, Rick Perry — no mean feat given that Perry has suggested that Texas could secede from the union. A state sovereignty zealot, Medina reminded those at a rally that “the tree of freedom is occasionally watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots.”

In the heyday of 1960s left-wing radicalism, no liberal Democratic politicians in Washington could be found endorsing groups preaching violent revolution. The right has a different history. In the months before McVeigh’s mass murder, Helen Chenoweth and Steve Stockman, then representing Idaho and Texas in Congress, publicly empathized with the conspiracy theories of the far right that fueled his anti-government obsessions.

In his Times article on the Tea Party right, Barstow profiled Pam Stout, a once apolitical Idaho retiree who cast her lot with a Tea Party group allied with Beck’s 9/12 Project, the Birch Society and the Oath Keepers, a rising militia group of veterans and former law enforcement officers who champion disregarding laws they oppose. She frets that “another civil war” may be in the offing. “I don’t see us being the ones to start it,” she told Barstow, “but I would give up my life for my country.”

Whether consciously or coincidentally, Stout was echoing Palin’s memorable final declaration during her appearance at the National Tea Party Convention earlier this month: “I will live, I will die for the people of America, whatever I can do to help.” It’s enough to make you wonder who is palling around with terrorists now.This whole article is too stupid to comment on besides saying how stupid it is.