A peaceful demonstration of at least a million — hey, if we can get 10 million, even better — but at least one million armed militia men marching on Washington. A peaceful demonstration. No shooting, no one gets hurt. Just a demonstration. The only difference from any typical demonstration is we will all be armed.

Today, the 27-year-old Sickles is one of nine militia members charged with conspiracy to overthrow the government. Also, I can’t help but notice that the commentary about this on fairly mainstream conservative sites is more skeptical of the FBI than of Sickles and the militias. Neither the left nor the right takes this stuff as seriously as law enforcement does.

The issue is after the jump, and it’s worth checking out now that we know that O’Keefe’s alleged co-conspirators also came from the world of conservative campus activism. And O’Keefe’s first editor’s note contains the statement — “the truth will set you free” — that he gave to reporters when leaving the courthouse yesterday.

Disguising truth has helped every blood-thirsty tyrant and dictator keep the shackles on humanity throughout history.  Let us rock the foundations of academia and challenge the thrones that have for too long indoctrinated us about our world and the context in which we live. As the Journal of Conservative thought at Rutgers university THE CENTURION will try its hardes to serve to that end.  Turn the page. You may read things you agree with and you may read things that you disagree with. But at least you’ll come closer to realizing your own truth, and in the words of Jesus Christ, “The truth shall set you free.”

AB: So when [O'Keefe] puts a story out there, it’s on the Brietbart sites, the Big sites, that he can tell people what transpired. So…

HH: Do you pay him for that?

AB: Yes.

HH: And are you free to tell me how much you pay him?

AB: I’ll… perhaps at another date, but he’s paid a fair salary.

HH: Is he… so he is an employee?

AB: I’m not sure that’s technically the thing, but yes, he’s paid for his life rights. And he’s, you know, he’s still… we reserve the right to say yes or no to any of the stories that he puts up on our site as we do to any other contributor who comes to the site.

HH: Will it be a mischaracterization to say he was working for you when he went about this?

AB: Well, I mean, no. He was not involved in anything that was related to Big Government, or Breitbart.com.

HH: And I think that’s the key thing. Lots of people work for lots of corporations, and do dumb and sometimes illegal things that are not within the scope of their employment. And this was not within the scope of his employment.

AB: Yes, absolutely. That is absolutely the case.

From the outset, Breitbart and Big Government editor-in-chief Mike Flynn have said that O’Keefe was acting on his own, and that they had no knowledge whatsoever of what he was planning in New Orleans. No one has proven them wrong. But Big Government, like many conservative news sites, has run repeated stories linking unions to ACORN based on minor financial ties — or less.

A Jan. 6 story at Big Government accused ACORN and “big labor” of being in cahoots because “ACORN files labor organization financial reports for SEIU 880 and SEIU 100 with the U.S. Department of Labor.” A Jan. 5 story made the case against National Labor Relations Board nominee Craig Becker because he was endorsed by ACORN founder Wade Rathke. A December 2009 story about Health Care for America Now accused the organization of being a front group for ACORN because ACORN members were listed as state contacts. “In short,” argued reporter Larry O’Connor, “HCAN is ACORN.” It’s hard to imagine that if this story was flipped — if someone on the ACORN payroll was busted spying on a senator — Big Government would give ACORN a free pass.

I give Breitbart and Flynn the benefit of the doubt on this story. But if the standards and scrutiny that Big Government applies to left-wing groups are flipped back on the Website, it’s going to be tough to argue that it’s not at all connected to O’Keefe’s potential crime. Again, I’m not stating an equivalence between this situation and the ACORN scandals. I’m just saying that if O’Keefe was paid by Big Government, this story isn’t going away.

FBI Special Agent Steven Rayes alleges that O’Keefe aided and abbetted two others, Joseph Basel and Robert Flanagan, who dressed up as employees of a telephone company and attempted to interfere with the office’s telephone system.

A fourth person, Stan Dai, was accused of aiding and abetting Basel and Flanagan. All four were charged with entering federal property under false pretenses with the intent of committing a felony.

O’Keefe had become a conservative media star since the ACORN sting. I just talked to Lisa De Pasquale, director of CPAC, who said that O’Keefe, along with co-stinger Hannah Giles and Andrew Breitbart, is (or was) under consideration for the annual conservative conference’s coveted Reagan Award.

Mike Flynn, the editor of Big Government–where the ACORN videos originally appeared–told me that the conservative news site had no knowledge of what O’Keefe was up to.

“We had absolutely no clue what he was up to,” said Flynn, “and now you see why! It’s a complete surprise to us. We’ll just see what happens.”

UPDATE: The FBI’s press release on the case:

Four Men Arrested for Entering Government Property Under False Pretenses for the Purpose of Committing a Felony

NEW ORLEANS—JOSEPH BASEL, age 24; ROBERT FLANAGAN, age 24; JAMES O’KEEFE, age 25; and STAN DAI, age 24, were charged in a criminal complaint with entering federal property under false pretenses for the purpose of committing a felony, announced the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana.

According to the complaint, which was unsealed earlier today, the arrest of FLANAGAN, BASEL, O’KEEFE, and DAI took place after BASEL and O’KEEFE attempted to gain access to the New Orleans office of United States Senator Mary Landrieu on January 25, 2010, while posing as telephone repairmen. According to the complaint, FLANAGAN and BASEL were each dressed in blue denim pants, blue work shirts, light green fluorescent vests, tool belts, and construction-style hard hats when they entered the Hale Boggs Federal Building, located at 500 Poydras Street, New Orleans, Louisiana 70130. Once in the building, FLANAGAN and BASEL sought access to the offices of Senator Landrieu. O’KEEFE was already present in the office, holding a cellular phone so as to record FLANAGAN and BASEL. Once inside Senator Landrieu’s reception area, FLANAGAN and BASEL told a member of Senator Landrieu’s staff that they were telephone repairmen, and they requested access to the main telephone at the reception desk. FLANAGAN and BASEL then manipulated the telephone system. FLANAGAN and BASEL next requested access to the telephone closet because they needed to perform work on the main telephone system. They were directed to the main office of the United States General Services Administration, also inside the Hale Boggs Federal Building, where they again represented themselves to be employees of the telephone company and stated that they needed to perform repair work in the telephone closet. Both FLANAGAN and BASEL stated that they had left their credentials in their vehicle. In addition, the complaint alleges that O’KEEFE and DAI assisted FLANAGAN and  BASEL in the planning, coordination, and preparation of the operation. The men were apprehended by the United States Marshal’s Service soon thereafter.

If convicted, FLANAGAN, BASEL, O’KEEFE, and DAI each face a maximum term of 10 years in prison, a fine of $250,000, and three (3) years of supervised release following any term of imprisonment.

The United States Attorney’s Office reiterated that the complaint is merely a charge and that the guilt of the defendant must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

The investigation is being conducted by Special Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Deputy Marshals with the United States Marshal’s Service. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Jordan Ginsberg.

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), for example, told Fox News this morning that he’s “disappointed” in Sanford, but he’s not ready to ask to governor to resign, arguing that his capacity to govern hinges largely on the health of his marriage.

I’m not sure where he is in his personal life with his wife. And that does have a lot to do whether or not he should continue. South Carolina needs some strong leadership right now, so if he’s not together … We need to do what’s best for our state, and we are looking at that right now.

DeMint, of course, had urged former Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) to step down after his arrest for lewd conduct in an airport men’s room. Heterosexual flings, it seems, don’t threaten family values quite so much.

The Chicago Tribune reports that businessmen with ties to both Jackson and Illinois’ Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich discussed raising $1 million for Blagojevich’s campaign fund and then held a fund-raiser on the governor’s behalf in an effort to bolster Jackson’s chances for an appointment to President-elect Barack Obama’s vacated Senate seat. Blagojevich was arrested Tuesday on federal corruption charges for allegedly scheming to “sell” the appointment to Obama’s seat.

Blagojevich made an appearance at an Oct. 31 luncheon meeting at the India House restaurant in Schaumburg sponsored by Oak Brook businessman Raghuveer Nayak, a major Blagojevich supporter who also has fundraising and business ties to the Jackson family, according to several attendees and public records.

Two businessmen who attended the meeting and spoke to the Tribune on the condition of anonymity said that Nayak and Blagojevich aide Rajinder Bedi privately told many of the more than two dozen attendees the fundraising effort was aimed at supporting Jackson’s bid for the Senate.

Among the attendees was a Blagojevich fundraiser already under scrutiny by federal investigators, Joliet pharmacist Harish Bhatt.

That meeting led to a Blagojevich fundraiser Saturday in Elmhurst, co-sponsored by Nayak and attended by Jesse Jackson Jr.’s brother, Jonathan, as well as Blagojevich, according to several people who were there. Nayak and Jonathan Jackson go back years and the two even went into business together years ago as part of a land purchase on the South Side.

Blagojevich and the congressman met to discuss the Senate seat on Monday, one day before federal prosecutors arrested Blagojevich and charged him with trying to sell the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama. As part of the charges, prosecutors alleged that Blagojevich was considering awarding the seat to a politician identified as “Senate Candidate 5″ because emissaries for that candidate were promising to raise as much as $1.5 million for Blagojevich’s campaign fund.

The Tribune has identified Jesse Jackson Jr. as “Senate Candidate 5.”

In a press conference Wednesday, Jackson denied any wrongdoing and said he is not a target of the federal investigation into Blagojevich’s activities.

It is obviously too early to draw conclusions, but if the report is correct, it is very difficult to imagine a positive spin for Jackson. Perhaps it’s possible that the businessmen were freelancing, but that would seem to be extremely risky, for precisely this reason — if you get caught, it looks really bad for your favored candidate.

However, the report suggests that there is a lot more yet to be uncovered about the Blagojevich affair. It places Jackson a degree closer to this explosive scandal, and in politics, that’s never a good thing.

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was captured on tape saying that unless he received “something real good” for the appointment of a top adviser to Barack Obama to fill the president-elect’s Senate seat he would appoint himself, according to a criminal complaint.

“Unless I get something real good [for Senate candidate 1], s***, I’ll just send myself, you know what I’m saying?” Blagojevich was taped saying on November 3, the day before Election Day.

Blagojevich added that the Senate seat “is a f***ing valuable thing, you just don’t give it away for nothing.”

The complaint does not mention her name, but the description makes clear that Blagojevich is referring to Valerie Jarrett, a senior campaign adviser to Obama who has been tapped as a top White House aide.

“By this time, media reports indicated that Senate Candidate 1, an advisor to the President-elect, was interested in the Senate seat if it became vacant, and was likely to be supported by the President-elect,” the complaint states.

Blagojevich also was caught on federal wiretaps saying he was interested in the job as secretary of health and human services in an Obama administration, a well-paid position on a foundation board, or millions of dollars for a nonprofit organization that he would run after leaving office, according to a 78-page federal criminal complaint.

Blagojevich also schemed to shake down a union in exchange for appointing a senator who was favorable to the union, prosecutors allege.

As if that weren’t incriminating enough, the complaint asserts that Blagojevich stated his goals even more bluntly in the wiretapped conversations with Tony Rezko, a convicted real estate developer and longtime Obama fund-raiser.

“I want to make money,” the affidavit quotes the governor as saying.

According to Politico, U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald said in a statement that “the breadth of corruption laid out in these charges is staggering,” and Blagojevich is accused of putting “a for sale sign on the naming of a U.S. senator.”

Obama canceled a schedule briefing with the FBI in Chicago, but it is unclear whether this is related to this morning’s events. According to this morning’s pool report, Obama’s meeting with former Vice President Al Gore remains on the slate.

A news conference on the arrests is expected shortly. We’ll continue to follow events as they develop.