New details on would-be Obama assassin's hate-group ties

The Southern Poverty Law Center offers new information today on one of the two white supremacists who allegedly hatched a plot to assassinate presidential candidate Barack Obama after a nationwide killing spree targeting African Americans. Daniel Cowart, 20, of Bells, Tenn. and Paul Schlesselman, 18, of West Helena, Ark. have been charged with possessing an unregistered firearm, conspiring to steal firearms and threatening a candidate for president.

SPLC reports that Cowart is a known member of a new skinhead hate group, the Supreme White Alliance, which formed earlier this year. In April, he attended a party celebrating Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's birthday, according to SPLC's Hatewatch blog:

SWA is headed by Steven Edwards, son of Ron Edwards, who leads the Imperial Klans of America. The Southern Poverty Law Center is currently involved in civil litigation with Ron Edwards and the IKA over the beating of a minority youth in July 2006.

Since 1995, there have been more than 60 major domestic terrorist plots that have emerged from the radical right. These have included everything from plans to bomb government buildings to amassing missiles, explosives, and even biological and chemical weapons. Most contemplated the deaths of large numbers of people -- in one case, as many as 30,000.

Shortly before their arrests, Cowart and Schlesselman also allegedly shot out a window of the Beech Grove Church of Christ, the Tennessean reports. The predominantly black church is about six miles outside Bells, Tenn.