Leader of the fringe.

• Author: Vest, Jason
• Position: Linda Thompson's American Justice Federation; Patriot movement - Oklahoma City federal building bombing - Cover Story

Given the general sense of weirdness surrounding the Patriot cadres, perhaps it's not surprising that much of the movement's anti-government spewage has been generated by a frumpy Hoosier computer junkie.

Last year, the American Justice Federation, a Patriot clearinghouse based in Indianapolis, sent each member of Congress a notice (ominously titled "Ultimatum") by certified mail, demanding that they abolish the IRS and the Federal Reserve Board and repeal the Brady Bill. If they failed to do so, they would be "put on trial for treason."

But the same day those letters went out, the American Justice Federation's director, Linda Thompson, apparently decided that the mere threat of putting elected officials on "trial" wasn't enough. So Thompson - who referred to herself as "Acting Adjutant General of the Unorganized Militia of the U.S.A." - took to the Internet and began calling for an armed suicide march on the U.S. Capitol, with the goal of literally stringing up the "traitors" under the dome. Thompson also took to the road to drum up support for her "Ultimatum," at one point outlining her plan to members of the Michigan Militia.

"She said, `Let's take guns to Washington, D.C., take U.S. Senators and Congressmen into custody, hold them for trial, and, if necessary, execute them,'" says Joseph Ditzhazy, a Michigan Militiaman who was at a meeting where Thompson spoke. According to Ditzhazy, Thompson got a favorable reception when she raised the possibility of "trying" figures like Lloyd Bentsen, Janet Reno, and the Clintons. "People were standing up, screaming, `Let's kill them, let's murder them, let's hang them, let's lynch them,'" he told ABC's Prime Time Live.

Following her postings, there was much hand-wringing in militia discussion groups about whether now was the right time to stick it to the Feds. (The John Birch Society emerged as the voice of restraint, telling its members not to participate.) Meanwhile, Thompson took to the airwaves - FM, AM, and shortwave - to promote the "next American war."

"She was on Art Bell's show [based in Nevada], saying we needed an armed uprising and saying stuff like, `We've got to hang these bastards,'" says one journalist who has followed Thompson's activities over the past year. "She went on and on like that for a couple of hours."

But in the end, the "Acting Adjutant General" stood down and called off her coup, drawing a hail of insults from those in the Patriot/Militia nexus. "You are so totally...