In a November 6 post titled “Vote,” ex-militia blogger and Fox News guest Mike Vanderboegh wrote, “At least later on you can say you tried everything else before you were forced to shoot people in righteous self-defense of life and liberty.” 

Vanderboegh, one of the self-proclaimed "midwives" covering the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Operation Fast and Furious “because nobody else would touch it,” has repeatedly appeared on Fox News over the past two years to discuss the failed gun trafficking sting. Setting aside his use of violent rhetoric and threats of armed insurrection against the United States government, Fox News promoted Vanderboegh as an “authority” on the topic.  

In the wake of the passage of healthcare reform in March 2010, Vanderboegh received national exposure after telling his readers that “if you wish to send a message that [then-Speaker Nancy] Pelosi and her party cannot fail to hear, break their windows.” According to The Washington Post, “In the days that followed, glass windows and doors were shattered at local Democratic Party offices and the district offices of House Democrats from Arizona to Kansas to New York.” Vanderboegh was unrepentant, telling the Post, “Glad to know people read my blog.”

According to federal prosecutors, the plot of Vanderboegh's novel Absolved inspired four members of a Georgia militia to attempt to obtain explosives and manufacture ricin, a biological agent, as part of a plan to assassinate government officials. In Absolved, a deadly shootout between a man who has stockpiled weapons and law enforcement inspires a group of anti-government extremists to devise a widespread assassination campaign against government officials. In its introduction, Vanderboegh described the book as “a cautionary tale for the out-of-control gun cops of the ATF” and “a combination field manual, technical manual and call to arms for my beloved gunnies of the armed citizenry.”