Earlier this week, FBI agents arrested four men in Georgia for plotting a series of domestic terror attacks on government officials and other people across the country. The FBI press release states that the men were caught on tape planning to purchase pounds of ricin, a biologic agent, as well as silencers and explosives. While the men claim to be part of a militia group, online postings identified by ThinkProgress make clear that at least one of the men had railed against President Obama, health reform, and regurgitated right-wing conspiracies on the popular conservative blog, RedState.com.

In a document filed with the Northern District of Georgia, parts of the transcript of the alleged domestic terrorists were released. “There is no way for us, as militiamen, to save this country, to save Georgia, without doing something that’s highly, highly illegal: murder,” said one of the accused terrorists, Frederick Thomas. Thomas also planned to target the ATF and the IRS. “We’d have to blow the whole building like Timothy McVeigh,” said Thomas, according to the Associated Press. The AP also notes that court documents accused Samuel Crump, a co-conspirator, of suggesting ricin could be “dropped from an airplane or blown out of a car along an interstate highway to attack people in Washington, Newark, NJ, Jacksonville, FL, Atlanta and New Orleans.”

Today, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution published a broader picture of the four men accused of the terror plan. Dustin Baker at the blog GAPolitico flags one important part of the AJC story: that accused terrorist Fred Thomas blogged on RedState.com, the website edited by CNN’s Erick Erickson. The Thomas blog post highlighted by Baker and AJC revealed that at one point, he did not “advocate a general rebellion against the U.S. Government for cause,” but seemed conflicted about the idea of violent revolution. Something apparently changed between that unpromoted post, published in July of 2008 and this year, when the alleged plot began taking shape.

A ThinkProgress examination of Thomas’s online writing in the following years shows that the alleged terrorist grew more and more upset, and expressed sympathy with the anti-Obama conspiracies posted on RedState. Last year, he posted a comment to a popular RedState post about the evils of health reform. Thomas claimed that the “ObummerCare Bill” not only “won’t be forgiven,” but will lead to “TYRANNY of the worst order” and “civil war.” (view a screenshot of the comment here)

The other blog Thomas mentions in his RedState comment is apparently the militia website run by Mike Vanderboegh, who gained infamy for calling for violence over the health reform bill and for writing an online series advocating a new civil war against President Obama. ThinkProgress has covered Vanderboegh, who recently signed up as a commentator for Fox News, here and here.

Thomas posted other comments on RedState, and indicated he was a regular reader. In one comment, Thomas asked how to gain promoted posts on the website, to which RedState editor Neil Stevens responded with a link and suggestion on the guidelines (view a screenshot here).

As GAPolitico notes, RedState editor Erick Erickson has a long history of fostering a blog filled with violent rhetoric and unhinged conspiracy theories. Earlier this year, Erickson suggested that “mass bloodshed” may be necessary if Roe v. Wade isn’t overturned, as Media Matters reported. During the health reform debate, when Thomas was an apparent fan of the site, Erickson promoted the debunked “death panels” smear, that health reform would give Obama the power to kill his political opponents and the elderly.

Erickson is not responsible for every comment left on his site, and he has no connection at all to the alleged terrorist plot in Georgia. His RedState website’s rhetoric of health reform “tyranny” and calls for violence, however, were embraced by at least one of the alleged conspirators.

The fallout from the U.N. cultural agency’s vote to admit Palestine as a member rolls on apace. After the U.S., as mandated by law, cut all funding to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Israel announced, in retaliation to the vote, that it intends to speed up illegal settlement construction in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and has, like the U.S., frozen its funding.

Yesterday at Foggy Bottom, reporters grilled State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland about what the U.S. planned on doing as two of its clients — Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) — acted against its will and interest. The Associated Press’s Matthew Lee noted that the U.S. gives $3 billion in annual aid to Israel, and millions to the PA, who then “continue(d) to ignore you and, in fact, not just to ignore you but to make matters worse.” Lee then asked a pointed question:

LEE: Answer this: Is the Administration upset or embarrassed at all by the fact that two relatively tiny groups of people are running roughshod over American foreign policy?

NULAND: We are concerned about whether we can get back to a good environment for talks. That is what we are concerned about.

LEE: You do believe that your involvement in U.N. organizations such as UNESCO, such as the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency], such as the World Health Organization, are in – that your involvement is – that that’s an American national security interest or in an American interest. And you’re prepared to allow these two small groups of people to make you forfeit your national interests in international organizations. That’s what you’re saying to me.

In an earlier portion of the exchange, at the top of the briefing, Lee brought up the announcement by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government that it would build more settlements in occupied territories, which an Amnesty International blogpost said might be a war crime. Nuland had said Israel’s actions were “unhelpful,” but Lee pressed her on consequences:

LEE: Okay. So what is the consequence for Israel of this? Is it the same consequence that the Palestinians face for going ahead with their plans at UNESCO and the UN, which is nothing?

NULAND: Look, we have said, as I just reiterated here, this is not helpful. I think that the fundamental consequence for both sides is that we’re not getting closer to two states living side by side in peace and security.

LEE: Yeah. Well, at this point, neither side seems to be really all that enthusiastic about getting to that point. So – and you seem to have zero influence. Now it seems to me that one of the ways that you could have some influence, or could get some influence back over one or the other side, is to actually do something in response to actions that you consider to be counterproductive and provocative. Why won’t you do that? Or is that just too much to ask during this political – the election season coming up?

Watch a compilation of the two exchanges here:

Nuland then noted the U.S. had reacted to the Palestinian push at UNESCO and subsequent vote by cutting off funding to the agency, leading Lee to quip that, “[I]t’s heartening to hear that you cut off funding to a party that really isn’t involved in this as a result, but you haven’t done anything that would affect either the Palestinians or the Israelis. Nothing.”

Pizza mogul Herman Cain has taken the GOP presidential campaign by storm in recent weeks, rising to the top of many state and national polls (recent sexual harassment scandals not withstanding). But despite his rise, Cain’s policies are certainly suspect, particularly his views on national security. Statements from Cain, like saying he’s not concerned about knowing who the president of “Ubeki-beki-beki-stan-stan is, have led some Republicans to conclude that he’s not quite “ready for primetime,” but Cain insists he’s now a foreign policy expert.

But Cain’s latest gaffe — his indication that he doesn’t know China has nuclear weapons — got former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wondering yesterday on Laura Ingraham’s radio show about Cain’s foreign policy prowess:

INGRAHAM: What do you make of that comment? Is that accurate what he said about China?

RICE: Well no clearly he misspoke. It is obvious that China is increasing its military capability. They’ve built an aircraft carrier for the first time and that sort of thing. They have have been a nuclear power for quite a long time as a matter of fact that’s one reason that they are grandfathered under the nonproliferation treaty because they were a nuclear power before that treaty came in to being so…people misspeak and not everybody’s a foreign policy expert going in to a presidential campaign. [...]

Let’s give it the benefit of the doubt and say maybe it was misspoken but obviously if you’re going to run for president you’re eventually going to really have to know these things because China is a big challenge out there in a lot of important ways, including militarily.

Listen to the clip:

If anyone knows anything about presidential candidates not knowing anything about foreign policy, it’s Rice — and that didn’t work out so well.

Condoleezza Rice continued her book tour this week talking with Foreign Policy’s Josh Rogin. Rogin pushed Rice to share her reflections on the Obama administration’s foreign policy, and surprisingly, the former Secretary of State chose to distance herself from the right-wing talking point that the end of year troop withdrawal from Iraq will dangerously strengthen Iran’s regional influence.

The go-to criticism leveled by GOP hawks doesn’t hold much water with Rice. She told Rogin:

The Iraqis are good armed forces; they’re buying a lot of our equipment. I think they’ll be able to defend themselves. They continue to need help on the counterterrorism side, and it would have been a good message to Iran. Although I think it’s easy to overstate the degree to which the Iraqis have any attraction to Iran — that’s a pretty lousy relationship, really.

Neocons and various Republicans harshly criticized President Obama for announcing that all U.S. troops would leave Iraq by the end of the year. Fred and Kimberly Kagan wrote that “it will unquestionably benefit Iran.” Newt Gingrich told an audience, “Don’t kid yourself, it is defeat. Iran is stronger.” Rick Santorum claimed “Iranians now have more sway over the Iraqi government.” And the Bill Kristol “letterhead organization,” the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI) wrote, in anticipation of a withdrawal, that the U.S. must maintain a strong presence in Iraq to “help ensure Iraq remains oriented away from Iran and a long-term ally of the United States.”

While neoconservatives and GOP presidential hopefuls are eager to suggest that the Obama administration’s withdrawal from Iraq — in conformity with the Status Of Forces Agreement negotiated and signed by Bush — is a major win for Iran, the former Secretary of State is clearly not buying it.

The 92nd Street Y and the Clarion Fund are having trouble getting the big names attached to their Iran war mongering panel on Nov. 7. First, New York Times Jerusalem Bureau Chief Ethan Bronner canceled his appearance on the panel after ThinkProgress called attention to Clarion’s history of promoting anti-Muslim documentaries and the upcoming panel discussion’s role in promoting the organization’s bomb-Iran documentary, Iranium. ThinkProgress can now report that former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, an outspoken proponent of military action against Iran, has dropped off the panel as well.

But Bolton, who even appears in the film to warn about the existential threat of an Iranian nuclear weapon, was more concerned with his appearance fee than Clarion Fund’s track record of hyping Islamophobia. A spokesperson at the 92nd St. Y told ThinkProgress:

There were not the funds we originally thought there were to bring John Bolton up. We were very sorry that he couldn’t but that’s what happened.

A source close to John Bolton confirmed that Bolton was not attending the event because of the 92nd St. Y’s inability to pay for his appearance.

Obviously Bolton is free to charge a speaking fee, but given his dire warnings about Iran’s nuclear program and his prominent role in Iranium, it’s interesting that he would only appear at the event if his speaking fee was paid. In Iranium Bolton warns:

I think Iran has as a long-term objective dominance within the Islamic world and dominance in the Middle East as well as becoming a great power internationally. [...]

All American administrations have consistently said that they find [that] Iran pursuing nuclear weapons is unacceptable. But unfortunately, unacceptable turns out to really mean unacceptable. Since the various U.S. governments have not taken adequate steps to prevent Iran from achieving that unacceptable result.

Watch a Clarion Fund compilation of Bolton’s comments in Iranium:

Given Bolton’s prominent role in the film and his regular calls for harsher policies to confront Iran, it’s surprising that the matter of an appearance fee has led him to cancel an opportunity to promote Iranium and warn the country — the event will be simulcast in over 20 locations across the U.S. — about what he believes to be an existential threat. But apparently for Bolton, a notorious proponent of military action and use of force, the lack of a satisfactory speaking fee trumps the importance of warning the country about the threat of a nuclear Iran.