For Hutaree, Web rumor stoked anger at Obama

By Niraj Warikoo
Free Press Staff Writer

A member of the Hutaree militia charged with federal crimes was upset because she thought that President Barack Obama had signed into law this month a bill that would spend $20 billion to help the terrorist group Hamas settle in the U.S.

There was never any such legislation, but Tina Stone believed it was the truth, according to her Facebook account.

"H.B. 1388 Passed.... It's bad news for us all," Tina Kelley, her maiden name, said on her Facebook page on March 19.

She then said in an update:

"I'm peeved,,, when people in this country is getting kicked out of there homes everyday and our government passes a bill to spend more then 20 billion dollars to bring Hamas here and supplies them with food and homes that just wrong."

On March 26, the day before the federal raid of Hutaree, she wrote at 12:21 p.m., “I'm so stressed I could KILL someone!!!!!!!”

Stone, part of a Christian militia busted by federal agents this week, apparently got the false idea from fake e-mails and Internet chatter that claimed Obama and Congress had passed H.B. 1388 to help Hamas.

According to the site factcheck.org — which tries to debunk lies on the Internet — the false rumors were generated in part from one e-mail that stated:

"Something happened... H.R. 1388 was passed yesterday, behind our backs. You may want to read about it. It wasn't mentioned on the news...Obama funds $20M in tax payer dollars to immigrate Hamas Refugees to the USA. This is the news that didn't make the headlines."

Stone was charged with being part of a plot to murder multiple police officers that would create a revolt against the U.S. government. Hutaree is a Christian militia that she was a part of.

Experts and the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights group, said the weak economy coupled with an African-American president has led to a dramatic increase in militia activity over the past year. The number of extremist anti-government groups and militias grew from 149 in 2008 to 512 in 2009, the center said.


http://www.freep.com/article/2010033...anger-at-Obama

This is why I wish more dumbasses would check their facts rather than just assume that the fox news Gods are telling them the truth. For being in the information age, we sure do seem to have a lot of misinformation spreading these days. Is it because people are just too lazy to think for themselves? Is it because people are just raised to listen to the voice from the sky (AKA Rush Limbaugh)? I don't, and probably can't understand. How can people read something on the internet and turn directly toward pitchforks and torches and be ready to lynch a nigga' without doing even remotely a little bit of research?

There's no such thing as Rush Limbaugh. This is a waste of space, time, and Mdselctr.

It's frustrating. I know people like us generally are skeptical by nature, and don't usually believe every single thing that we read or hear. Most of us have a fairly good bs meter that will sound off at such nonsense as this woman was spewing, but why? Well it's fairly simple, she's scared. People that watch FoxNews are scared and frightened by everything. The fear is stoked on a daily basis, and their fear leads them to listen to more fearmongers like Rush, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, etc. The news anchors are allowed to continue what they are doing because of corporations funding their advertisments, etc.

But why are people scared and don't figure it out on their own? I think it probably has a lot to do with how they were raised. I was personally raised to always ask questions, even if they might seem stupid, they really aren't. I think there is an intelligence gap in our country where there are a large sum of people that won't take the time to figure out what others around them are saying, and just take it as fact or mostly fact, and in turn, spread more misinformation.