Conspiracists Accuse Alex Jones of Being a ‘Zionist Shill’ After Infowars Takes Down David Duke Debate Video

[Cross-posted at Hatewatch.]

Alex Jones appears to regret having brought David Duke onto his program late last month for an extended interview.

An uproar among white nationalists immediately followed the interview, with one extremist after another proclaiming it proof that Jones, the popular conspiracist radio host who operates InfoWars, was working secretly on behalf of Jewish interests. The chorus of disapproval from Jones’ sector of the right-wing paranoid universe became so loud that Jones eventually took down the two-hour video from his own website (though others promptly put up copies of it), and deleted most references to it on his site, including comments from his fans.

In the meantime, the argument on the far right about Jones’ ostensible Jewish ties has continued apace.

It all began in mid-August when Jones issued a challenge to Duke, the longtime Klan and neo-Nazi leader, to appear on the air with him and debate him, in part because he and his staff had found instances in which Duke was found criticizing Jones, notably over Jones’ fondness for conspiracy theories about FEMA concentration camps.

“And then he goes into: ‘Alex Jones wants to scare you from being politically involved, and tell you you can be put in prison if you fight back.’ No, I said you’ll be put in prison, or enslaved or impoverished if you don’t fight back,” Jones complained.

“I’m gonna give Duke a chance to even play clips on this show, to show me where I said this and that, but don’t sit there and say something if you don’t have the meat and potatoes,” Jones said.

So three days later, Duke appeared on Jones’ radio show and remained for a full-two-hour interview.

For most of the first half of the affair, Jones and Duke appeared to be largely in agreement in their paranoid view of a New World Order-dominated America. But things started to drift apart when Duke became increasingly insistent on blaming the entire conspiracy on “Jewish supremacists” who he claims are engaging in a race war against whites, and who he said control the nation’s banks, its political officials, and its media.

“All right,” Jones said, “I’ve never had anybody Jewish try to stop me from covering the things I do, going over the things I do.”

Then he brought on his producer, Rob Jacobson, a Jewish man who was sitting in the studio. Jacboson began peppering Duke with questions about the logic and veracity of a number of his claims, pointing out that only one of the participants in the notorious Jekyll Island meeting of 1910 (a centerpiece of many New World Order conspiracy theories) was Jewish.

At that point, Duke became shrill and defensive, and even more loudly insistent in describing the nefarious results of various Jewish conspiracies. He and Jones swapped complaints about how much time he was being allowed to speak, which became a secondary focus of their debate. Duke complained that Jacobson – who kept interjecting with counterfactual material – was cutting him off. And after two hours, the interview ended on a sour and inconclusive note as Jones offered to bring Duke back yet again.

However, that does not appear likely now. Jones’ video of the interview was swamped with comments from Duke fans attacking Jones and Jacobson for having had the temerity to challenge Duke’s assertions about Jews, claiming that the two radio hosts had now proven that they were in the pocket of Jewish interests. Shortly afterward, Jones removed it from his YouTube page.

But the controversy only appeared to step up at that point, at least among the denizens of the conspiracist universe. On YouTube,  in addition to copies of the original debate, videos headlined “Alex Jones Exposed as Zionist Shill by David Duke” and  “Zionist Alex Jones Attempts to Bully Anti-Zionist David Duke” began appearing.

At the Conspiracy Outpost – a message board where people trade a variety of far-right theories – there was much discussion of Jones’ Jewish ex-wife. One commenter argued that “it is easy to observe that he was controlled by outside forces and possibly did this to Duke as a last ditch effort to save his life. He lost. BIG TIME.”

There was even criticism at the InfoWars community, where one diarist posted that Jones had “disappointed many of his loyal fans”: “Alex Jones must know that although he has done so much good for us in the fight for our liberty, he is failing on the most important topic of our times: Global Zionism.”

But the harshest criticism came from the neo-Nazi right. At The Daily Stormer, editor Andrew Anglin slammed Jones for taking down the video, noting that the comments on Jones’ own websites were running strongly in favor of Duke, even on threads not devoted to the debate: “The comments are all over his YouTube page, all over infowars.com. People are spamming his Twitter and that of [contributor] Paul Joseph Watson.”

Another Daily Stormer contributor, Lee Rogers, then composed an essay titled “Alex ‘Jew Wife’ Jones: The Looming Death of a Corrupt Dick Juice Driven Disinformation Empire,” which concluded: “Either way, unless his operations are further subsidized by Jewish financing, I do not see how he can sustain them for much longer in light of what has happened.  I believe we are truly seeing the looming death of Alex Jones and his empire of disinformation.”

At the white nationalist Traditional Youth Network website, the headline read: "David Duke defeats Alex Jones: We Are Destined to Win." The piece credits The Daily Stormer with provoking the debate, adding: "Had it not been for Daily Stormer’s activism, Jones’ listeners would have carried on assuming that Duke is a hateful and ignorant fool who wants to genocide black babies, but truth prevailed."

Duke himself reveled in the fresh shot of attention. At his site, he posted a couple of videos ruminating on the “victory” in the debate, and issued a statement: “I don’t want to go on the warpath with Alex Jones,” Duke said. “But, I am shocked that this great debate that he promoted on his show, has suddenly disappeared from his website and channel. …. He should not [be] trying to send it down the memory hole and hide from his listeners."

Duke, in the meantime, managed to keep up his penchant for making headlines: In Baton Rouge, he was ejected from a meeting of the United Daughters of the Confederacy at a hotel on the campus of Louisiana State University. According to news accounts, he was asked to leave the gathering after getting into an argument with someone about the Black Lives Matter movement. He claimed he had been invited to speak, but meeting organizers denied that.

And back at Jones’ site, the only trace of the great Duke-Jones debate that remains is the video of Jones’ challenge to Duke beforehand.

Oath Keepers Head to Kentucky to Repeat Bundy Ranch Tactics in Kim Davis Dispute

[Cross-posted at Hatewatch.]

Threatening to turn the media circus surrounding Kentucky court clerk Kim Davis’ ongoing fight with federal courts over her refusal to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples into something akin to the Bundy Ranch scene, Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes on Wednesday announced that he would be sending his troops to the scene in Grayson, Ky., to protect Davis from being arrested again by federal marshals.

“We have had boots on the ground there since last week and will continue to have a presence,” an announcement at the Oath Keepers website said. It noted that Rhodes had “reached out personally to Davis’s legal counsel to offer protection to Kim, to ensure that she will not be illegally detained again. We would like to stress in the strongest terms possible that we are doing this not because of her views on gay marriage, but because she is an elected public servant who has been illegally arrested and held without due process.”

Davis was arrested last week for refusing to obey a federal court order and detained on contempt-of-court charges. Judge David Bunning, who had ordered the arrest, released her early this week, but required her to drop her refusal to issue same-sex marriage licenses in doing so.

However, Davis – who is scheduled to return to work on Monday – has subsequently insisted she will not issue such licenses. So a second arrest may well be imminent.

The Oath Keepers are hardly the only far-right extremists who have shown up to participate in the circus that has developed outside the Rowan County Courthouse in the past week. Renowned white supremacist Michael Peroutka showed up over the weekend and offered a speech in support of Davis at a rally outside the jail where she was being held. So did Matt Heimbach, leader of the white-nationalist Traditionalist Youth Network.

Rhodes on Wednesday broadcast a conversation he had with his “boots on the ground” in Kentucky – notably, a “constitutionalist” sheriff named Denny Peyman from Jackson County, KY.

Peyman told Rhodes: “I think that it’s important that our presence be known there, because it’s not an issue of marriage, it’s not an issue of a lot of things they are trying to make the issue. The issue is still that a judge took an elected official, a citizen of the United States, and detained them without cause, without paperwork, and without due process. That is the situation.”

Rhodes noted that the Oath Keepers originally headed to Kentucky to participate in a protest outside the home of Judge Bunning, but now were reconfiguring their plans to head to Grayson and provide a security detail for Davis.

Peyman sounded a threatening note in Bunning’s direction: “I think the judge still needs to know that he’s not out of the woods just because they let her out. He’s still going to be held accountable.”

Rhodes instructed Peyman and company to offer Davis’ team the Oath Keepers’ protection. “Offer her – if she wants  a close protection team, we will provide it,” he said. “But regardless, people should consider her under our protection. We’ll make sure that our people are keeping a close eye on the situation and we’re gonna have boots on the ground and mount a watch, regardless. We need this judge to understand that he’s not gonna be able to just go grab this lady whenever he feels like it.”

The Oath Keepers – a “Patriot” organization fueled by conspiracy theories about an imminent federal dictatorship – played a central role in turning the Bundy Ranch standoff with federal authorities into a near-shootout in April 2015, and have subsequently ordered their members into various “calls to arms” in Oregon and Montana, where they brought guns to the scene of what were essentially paper disputes over mining rights.

The Oath Keepers also have had a presence in Ferguson, Mo., during the upheaval of recent rioting and protests over police handling of black suspects. And they have also offered their “protection” to the nation’s military-recruitment centers with vigilante armed patrols outside them.

UPDATE: Kim Davis's legal team declined the Oath Keepers' offer to protect her against arrest, according to a post dated September 11 on the Oath Keepers website.

Dispatch From Lincoln: ‘Patriots’ Lost in the Haze at Contested Montana Mine Site

[Cross-posted at Hatewatch.]

The dense haze that hung over Lincoln, Mont., last week was a perfect physical metaphor for the status of the antigovernment extremists who recently descended upon the town.

But in yet another pseudo-showdown with federal lands officials orchestrated by the “Oath Keepers” and their militia-minded associates, the militiamen were basically nowhere to be seen – hunkered back at the mine site, 12 miles east of town on winding and largely inaccessible dirt roads, or hanging out at the local motels and little else.

Out  of sight, out of mind, and out of everyone’s hair.

The haze itself was part of the reason that the ongoing presence of a corps of well-armed far-right militiamen quickly receded from memory. It is fire season in Montana, and this season in particular has turned into a nightmarish one, with so many fires here and elsewhere in the Northwest that the entire region has been blanketed in a smoke haze so dense that it obscures the normally scenic hillsides and mountains entirely, and leaves everyone coughing and smelling of campfires.

Just a mile south of Lincoln, the U.S. Forest Service has set up its “Fire Camp” filled with personnel numbering in the low hundreds to handle several large fires that have erupted in the dense forests around Lincoln, a tiny logging town just a little south of the immense Bob Marshall Wilderness in western Montana. This week, what’s on everyone’s mind is the very real job of keeping the whole place from going up in flames. Though there are still “Oath Keepers” and “III Percenters” in town, it seems they are yesterday’s joke to people in Lincoln.

“I haven’t seen them around much this week,” a waitress told me. “Guess they’re keeping their heads down now.”

It was not that way at the start, when the armed militiamen arrived in Lincoln in mid-August and began parading their weapons about town, sometimes walking down the town’s main strip – Montana Highway 200, a connector road for Missoula and Great Falls – with the AR-15s strapped to their backs in the style of “open carry” advocates.

That upset a lot of locals in this arch-conservative corner of a fairly red state – nearly all of whom own some kind of gun or another, but consider brandishing a gun for its own sake a kind of foolishness.

“Unless it’s hunting season, when everyone has them out, nobody around here walks around with a rifle on display,” a local construction worker told me. “It’s almost rude or something. Like: ‘What do you need that for?’ It’s not necessary, so why do it?”

It also upset a number of people working on a local job site – namely, the large reclamation project under way at Mike Horse Dam, on property directly adjacent to the White Hope Mine where the militiamen are encamped east of town, on a mine site owned by George Kornec and Phil Nappo.  The project, which is overseen by the state Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), uses the same road as that being used by the Oath Keepers to traipse up to the mine site, but with large earth-moving vehicles that can’t always brake suddenly. Fears about an accident on the narrow dirt roads were well grounded.

A town meeting was held at one point, giving locals a chance to understand why these “Patriots” considered it necessary to be brandishing their guns in protest of people most people in Lincoln considered their neighbors (the USFS is a major employer in the little town) and whether they were going to be careering around the local dirt backroads at the same time as big gravel trucks.

“We are not here to wreak havoc for this city or this county or this state, but we are here to ensure that (miners) Phil and George get their time in court,” said Joseph Santoro, the Army retiree whose video posted at the Oath Keepers website was the first national “call to arms” for Patriots to come to Montana.

“We are not thugs. We are not criminals. We ensure that the people we bring here into your community have been thoroughly vetted. If they are any type of a lunatic fringe, I swear to you they aren’t coming here,” Santoro said.

The mine owners and their supporters eventually worked out a schedule with the DEQ project’s officials to only use the roads during times when the trucks would not be on them, leaving the antigvoernment crew mostly stuck in place at the encampment once working hours began and only relenting when the day was done.

A DEQ project manager told Hatewatch that three days after reaching that deal, a group of militiamen came through the construction site during midday hours in violation of the deal: “Fortunately, my guys were on their toes and nobody got hurt,” she said. The incident spurred further promises to stay off the roads during work hours, and so far, she said, those promises have been kept.

Townfolk say three or four different shifts of campers have come and gone at the mine, with a crew of “III Percenters” from Idaho being the most persistent presence. Initially, a crew of militiamen from Oregon who had been involved in the earlier attempted “showdown” over a silver mine on federal land near Grants Pass was heavily involved in organizing the Lincoln affair, but by late August they had mostly gone back home.

Several reporters have attempted to approach the operation and have been severely rebuffed. Marshall Swearingen, writing for the High Country News, was able to arrange an escort through the DEQ job site, but was rebuffed by the guardsmen he met at the gate to the mine site.

“The operatives forcefully tell me to not take photos,” he wrote. “They will not tell me their names. The man with the angry stare has a radio, and it crackles to life. He answers with a radio handle of ‘Warthog,’ or maybe War Hog — he won't say.

Similarly, Rebecca Schoenkopf, a reporter for Wonkette, was unable to make it past the motel room used by the militiamen as a gathering point. The “Patriot” code-named “Mouse” who greeted her and her husband turned hostile when they identified themselves as liberals and began stonewalling them harshly: “I’m not talking to you. I want your word you won’t write anything that happened in here.”

He concluded the interview: “This did not happen. If you write down anything I said in here, I will call you a liar.”

The dispute over the Montana mine dates back years, to a court hearing in which Kornec lost his original 1872-mining-law-based surface rights to the mine. Kornec is something of a celebrated hermit, though in Lincoln – which is still trying to recover its reputation from its most infamous resident, Ted Kacynski – that is not necessarily an admirable thing.

The presence of an armed threat in the dispute is as strangely detached from the realities of mining on federal land as was the case in Grants Pass, where the mine owners were claiming that the Bureau of Land Management was threatening to burn down their operation, while in fact the dispute was still very much in the paper phase and undergoing adjudication. The Oath Keepers and their cohorts there, in fact, rolled up their camp and declared victory simply upon receiving a judicial hearing for their appeal – a hearing that had long been scheduled before the “showdown.”

On Aug. 11, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the mine owners over the dispute, thereby guaranteeing that Kornec and Natto would get their day in court. And indeed, the Oath Keepers declared victory by having the lawsuit filed against their friends – but then also vowed to remain in Montana until the miners receive their first day in court, too.

"We will continue to remain vigilant and on site and make sure what we achieved yesterday is upheld," spokesman Chris McIntire, a leader of the Idaho contingent, told reporters.

So far, the encampment has remained calm and free of incident – unlike in Oregon, when a report of a mysterious helicopter sparked a short-lived panic in the Patriot encampment and had truckloads of men bristling with weaponry prowling the roads near the mine.

The nearby forest fires, the large Forest Service camp, and the thick haze all put a particular damper on the heated rhetoric that rolled into town along with the armed Patriots, much of it anger directed at the federal government. That kind of talk sounded hollow and ill-tempered at a time when people in western Montana were being reminded that the objects of this antigovernment animus were also their neighbors – in fact, were the very neighbors everyone was depending upon to keep their homes and their livelihoods intact, even as it seemed as if the whole state were afire.

A columnist for the nearby Helena newspaper noted that a commenter on its reportage of the Lincoln standoff caught the gist of the general sentiment there.

“Might as well inform you that my family is ranching and we are certainly NOT a militia, or training anyone in weapons handling. And when we are mad at the Forest Service or BLM, we go see them or ask them to come out and we can talk. That's how Montanans are known for solving things. ...

"Those public servants are our neighbors -- they buy groceries where we do and go to church with us. Our kids are in school together. They are Montanans.

"They are not my enemy."

‘Patriots’ Heed ‘Call to Action’ to ‘Protect’ Montana Mine from a Baffled U.S. Forest Service

[Cross-posted at Hatewatch.]

The Oath Keepers have shown up in the tiny western Montana town of Lincoln, answering a “call to action” issued earlier this month to protect the “constitutional rights” of a local mine owner in a dispute with the federal government.

The “call to action” was issued on Aug. 4 by a Montana Oath Keepers leader, Joseph Santoro, in a YouTube video and on the Oath Keepers national website.

“Pacific Patriot Network under the leadership of the Oath Keepers has set up a security mission to protect the White Hope Mine and related claims in Lewis & Clark County, MT,” the announcement read. “The immediate aim of this operation is to act as a buffer between the miners and any unlawful action by the United States Forest Service (USFS).”

That fight the Oath Keepers have promised has a familiar ring to it.

Just as the Oath Keepers and others claimed ahead of a protest and gathering of militiamen in nearby Medford, Ore., the Oath Keepers and III percenters claimed they were there to protect the “constitutional rights” of a local mine owner in a dispute with the Bureau of Land Management.

Strangely, even as the matter was being adjudicated in the normal process for such disputes, the mine owners claimed their rights were being violated. They claimed they were at risk of being burned out of their mine.

In Oregon, BLM officials were unsure how to respond to the accusations of usurping the Constitution. Likewise, Forest Service officials in the regional Montana offices are searching for what might have summoned the Oath Keepers.

“These are a couple of guys who have been working this claim for a couple of decades,” David Smith, regional spokesman for the Forest Service, told Hatewatch. “They had an operating plan that expired last year, and we’ve been working with them to get a new one approved. And they also had a couple of compliance issues that we were working with them to resolve. … They were agreeable to our suggestions.”

Smith said the “call to action” came out of the blue.

“We’ve been in a relationship with them for a long time, and we wanted to make clear we wanted to work with them to get them up and running so they can exercise their rights to mine that claim in accordance with the law,” he said.

The Missoulian explained that the dispute dates back to previous paper transactions regarding the claim, including a change of jurisdiction from 1872 mining laws to a newer federal law passed in 1955. The mine owners claim they fall under the previous jurisdiction, in spite of previous court rulings.

”We are grandfathered from the 1874 mining laws and that means we're under state law,” mine owner George Kornec told reporters. “And this is what it’s all about, that's why I’m standing up.”

At the center of the dispute is a new building erected on the site, and how to get their plan into compliance with federal laws with the building included.

“We have never said or planned to remove that structure that they built,” Smith told Hatewatch. “What we have said is, how do you justify having that structure within your operating plan? We have not ever said that we would come in and remove the structure itself.”

Another concern that officials have involves a Department of Environmental Quality mine-reclamation project next door to the White Hope Mine, and trucks and other traffic coming to and from that site are using the roadways heavily. “Our concern right now is we don’t want people coming in back and forth on that road and interfering with the contractors using it. Safety is a huge concern there. There are 40 people employed by that construction project,” Smith said.

The ruling on whether it was handled under 1872 or 1955 law came from the courts, Smith said. “We just have the obligation to enforce the law according to that ruling.”

Smith added that the case is not involved in litigation or adjudication at any level, so there’s no forthcoming “day in court” that might signal an end to the armed protest at the mine, as it did in Oregon.

“Obviously, we’re not in a confrontation,” he said. “It’s not the people who are there I’m worried about – it’s the ones from the fringe who want to join in. And I’m worried about the safety of the people up there. We don’t want to see things escalate, especially over an issue that we have been working all along in a very cooperative way to resolve.”

Antigovernment ‘Patriots’ Show Up At Military Recruiting Centers Nationwide to ‘Protect the Protecters’

[Cross-posted at Hatewatch.]

Responding to a nationwide call to arms issued by the leadership of the Oath Keepers, scores of antigovernment “Patriots” have begun showing up fully armed and prepared to guard military recruiting offices across the United States – and some continue to do so.

Mind you, they are doing so in defiance of the Marine Corps’ expressed request to stay away, and the Army’s declaration that they represented a security threat. Already, one of the wannabe guards got himself in trouble by accidentally firing a round into the public parking lot. The guards claimed they were inspired to participate in “Operation Protect the Protecters,” the latest Oath Keepers activity, following the July 16 attack on a recruiting office in Chattanooga, TN, that left four Marines dead.

The extremists who responded to the “national call to action” cited the attack – and reports explaining that these offices are not permitted by military regulation to arm themselves – as part of their reasoning for standing outside strip malls and other small office buildings.

Participants included not just Oath Keepers but other Patriot movement followers, including so-called “III Percenters” who showed up in Idaho, Oregon and Ohio. According to the Associated Press, there were watches in Spanaway, Wash., Hiram, Ga., Madison, Wis., McAllen, Texas; Auburn Hills, Mich.; Phoenix, Ariz.; and several locations in Tennessee.

Local media coverage found additional recruiting center watches in Lancaster and in Ontario, Ohio; in Boise, Idaho; in Bend, Ore.; in Greensville, S.C.; in Farmington, Mo.; and in Morristown, N.Y.
It was in Lancaster that one of the participants accidentally fired off a round from a semi-automatic AR-15 rifle he was toting as “protection” for the military recruiters. Police said no one was hurt, but they cited Christopher Reed, 28, for discharging his weapon within city limits.

According to the police report, Reed was trying to clear his weapon of the round he had chambered before having someone look at the gun when it discharged into the pavement nearby.

Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes quickly waved off any responsibility, claiming that Reed wasn’t a member: “Thankfully, not one of ours,” he said in an article posted to the group's website. “Good intentions on the part of volunteers are not enough, because we all know where the road paved with them leads,” the article mused.

Military officials made clear they wished to have nothing to do with these “operations.” A statement issued by the U.S. Marine Corps recruiting station in San Diego said:

It has come to our attention that many patriotic citizens have been standing armed guard outside recruiting stations across the country. While we greatly appreciate the support of the American public during this tragedy, we ask that citizens do not stand guard at our recruiting offices. Our continued public trust lies among our trained first responders for the safety of the communities where we live and work.

According to Stars and Stripes, the Army advised its recruiters to treat these pop-up guardsmen as a security threat: “Soldiers should avoid anyone standing outside the recruiting centers attempting to offer protection and report them to local law enforcement and the command if they feel threatened, according to a U.S. Army Recruiting Command policy letter issued Monday.”

Rural Texas Town Freaks Out About Plans to Locate Muslim Cemetery There

[Cross-posted at Hatewatch.]

Hysteria over a Muslim community’s plans to place a cemetery in a small rural Texas town has reached such heights that residents are proclaiming that burials would likely contaminate the town’s drinking water — leading one resident to recommend that the site be contaminated with the blood and heads of pigs.

The residents of Farmersville, Texas — located about 40 miles northeast of Dallas — recently descended upon the town council to demand that city fathers put a stop to a request from the Islamic Association of Collin County to turn a 35-acre open tract into a Muslim cemetery. The request was filed because the region’s Muslims face a shortage of cemetery space for members of their faith.

The meeting was replete with fears that the plan is mere cover for more nefarious purposes.

“It is my duty and my right to warn when there is a danger,” said one resident. “They’re at war with us,” said another. “It’s gonna kill Farmersville,” warned yet another.

A local pastor, David J. Meeks, told the Dallas Morning News that residents fear an expanded Muslim presence in their town. “How can we stop a mosque or madrassa from going in there?” he asked. “The concern for us is the radical element of Islam.”

But the wildest charges came from people claiming that they were concerned the cemetery would contaminate the city’s water supply.

“When somebody dies, they bury them at that time,” Farmersville resident Troy Gosnell told KTVT-TV. “You don’t know whether they were shot, diseased or anything else. All they do is wrap them in a sheet, throw them in the grave and bury them.”

Another resident claimed that this was part of a plot to poison the town’s water supply. “Their bodies are generally above the water,” she explained. “We get rain, it’s going to be in our drinking system.”
An elderly resident proposed a plan of attack for locals to dissuade the Muslims from seeking the land: “Take and dump pigs’ blood and [plant] pigs’ heads on a post,” he said, “and they won’t buy the land.”

In reality, Muslim Americans use coffins and vaults to bury their dead. Khalil Abdur-Rashid, a spokesman for the Islamic association, said misinformation was behind the criticism. He contended that the plans for the cemetery have more to do with “human dignity” than religion.

“Some thought it was a mosque going to be built, others thought it was a training ground,” Abdur-Rashid told WFAA-TV. “We want to be very clear that this is a cemetery.”

“They are fearful of what they don’t understand and hopefully it’s an opportunity for us to come together and learn a little bit more about each other and hopefully dispel some of those misconceptions,” said Alia Salem with the Dallas-Forth Worth chapter of CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) Texas.

Of course, such irrational behavior related to Islamophobic hysteria isn’t confined to rural Texas. Recently a Florida gun shop owner announced via YouTube video that he was declaring his store a “Muslim-free zone” as a way of preventing terrorism.

CAIR officials in Florida noted that such a declaration violated state law, and the organization would be requesting an investigation.

“I invite Andy, the gun shop owner, to come and break bread with us, to get to know us as his fellow Americans. As his neighbors. We might be his doctor, his police officer, his firefighter. That’s what the American-Muslim community is. And I think he should get to know us, and not let fear and hatred divide us as Americans,” said Hassan Shibly of CAIR Florida.

Texas Border-Militia ‘Camp Rusty’ Calls It Quits: ‘It Wasn’t That Great’

[Cross-posted at Hatewatch.]

Back when it was bustling with militiaman volunteers eager to stop immigrants from crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, they called Cuban “Rusty” Monsees’ rural property outside of Brownsville, Texas, “Camp LoneStar.”

But as the sheen faded – and the arrests of participants at the camp mounted – the encampment of “Patriots” began to dwindle to almost nothing, and it gradually came to just be dubbed “Camp Rusty.”

Monsees recently announced that the property is now up for sale. He reflected on the changes with a reporter for KRGV-TV.

“Some of the stuff that was taking place, it wasn’t that great,” Monsees admitted.

The encampment first made news in Texas a year ago by attracting number of armed militiamen from around the rest of the nation to the little spot on the Rio Grande where participants could go rambling on “missions” running reconnaissance on border-crossing activities.

At times, the gun-toting militiamen even detained border crossers they caught – cuffing them with plastic ties and guarding them with weapons until Border Patrol arrived to take them away – while at other times they would chase people swimming over the Rio Grande back across the river.

Then participants began having run-ins with the law. First, a Border Patrol officer took shots at one of the militiamen while pursuing a border-crossing fugitive. Then it emerged that the man who had been shot at, who was carrying a weapon at the time of the incident, was a felon prohibited from possessing firearms. And so, it then emerged, was Kevin C. “K.C.” Massey III, the ostensible “commander” of Camp LoneStar, who was with the militiamen at the time and whose background check revealed a similar felony conviction.

Both men were charged with felony weapons violations and currently await trial in federal court in Texas.

Monsees, a longtime Brownsville-area rancher, explained to reporters at the time that he invited the militiamen to come to his property and set up camp there because he was concerned about “security” on his border ranch. But he told the KRGV reporter that he regretted the whole business now.

“They jeopardized my safety and some other people’s safety by what they were doing,” Monsees said.

He said he had made mistakes about who could participate. “Number one because I misread some of the people,” he said. “I found out that there were people here that I didn’t do far enough of a background check on. That’s a regret that I have.”

Some neighbors told KRGV that they appreciated having the “Patriots” gathered in their vicinity. But other reporters had earlier found a number of neighbors who found their presence intimidating and fear-inducing.

“We don’t know who these people are. They’re carrying high-powered weapons. It makes us feel less safe, not more safe to have them here,” one of them said. “I just hope they leave soon.”

That wish has been granted.

Right-Wing Sites Snookered by Fake Stories About SPLC Hate Group Designations

[Cross-posted at Hatewatch.]

The headlines — widely circulated on social media and a variety of right-wing websites — certainly are attention-grabbing: “Fox News Designated Hate Group by Southern Poverty Law Center” and “Juggalos Classified As Hate Group By Southern Poverty Law Center.” And many of the posts promoting the pieces on Facebook, Twitter and elsewhere clearly seem to take them at face value.

There’s a big problem, though: The stories are complete fakes.

The Fox News piece was published earlier this week at a satirical “news” site called the Free Wood Post, where the motto is: “News That’s Almost Reliable.” The post contained no links to any such SPLC report because, of course, none existed.

That didn’t stop the Free Wood Post from doing its thing. “Their hatred was tolerated for a long time as freedom of expression,” the site said dramatically of the news channel, “which they are still free to do, however, the time has come to no longer ignore their obvious bigotry broadcast to millions of like-minded folks, and label them what they are — a hate group.”
Needless to say, Fox News has never come under consideration for hate-group status by the SPLC, nor is it ever likely to. A news channel, by definition, includes many voices with many different opinions — even if those displayed on Fox are virtually all conservative — and so it is fundamentally different from a group whose members all sign on to the same ideology. Nonetheless, by Thursday, the post about Fox News had garnered over 30,000 shares on Facebook.

You’d think folks might have figured out that the story was a spoof. After all, the site carries a pretty clear disclaimer: “Free Wood Post is a news and political satire web publication, which may or may not use real names, often in semi-real or mostly fictitious ways. All news articles contained within FreeWoodPost.com are fiction, and presumably fake news.” But enormous numbers didn’t.

Similarly, the Juggalos piece, which ran before the Fox News tale, first appeared in a post at another satirical “news” site, the National Report. That site uses a url beginning with “nytimes.com.co,” leading many to assume that the story actually originated with The New York Times, whose url is similar but not the same.

Juggalos is the name used by members of the fan club of the hip-hop duo Insane Clown Posse, who are known for making controversial comments.

The story said, in part: “The Southern Poverty Law Center has classified Juggalo’s [sic] as a hate group among 17 states including the entire Midwest (North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio), in addition to California, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Oregon.”

That, too, was laughably false. While the members of Insane Clown Posse do indeed make incendiary and insensitive remarks, they fall far short of the behavior — namely, having “beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics” — that earns a hate-group designation by the SPLC. Moreover, there were some pretty obvious clues. The story claimed the SPLC was asking citizens to “keep an eye open” for a list of behaviors including “Making or responding to a ‘whoop whoop’ call” and “Drinking or spraying their enemies with Faygo (an inexpensive soda).”

However, at least one right-wing blogger — Jay Syrmopoulos at the Free Thought Project — initially succumbed to the hoax and published a breathless post that swallowed the entire tale whole.

Afterward, upon learning that the piece was satire, he edited the story to indicate that the source of information was a spoof, but redirecting his ire at the FBI, which had classified the Juggalos as a gang. “This is the level of absurdity to which our government has risen,” he raged. “They have criminalized an entire fan base with a blanket label over anyone displaying typical rabid fanatic behavior… hence the term fan, short for fanatic!”

Contacted by the SPLC, Syrmopoulos, who is described in his author summary as an “investigative journalist,” was defiant: “The reality is that the SPLC isn't an unbiased research organization, but rather a leftist anti-hate activist group masquerading as a center of legitimate, academically sound research,” he huffed. “Sadly your group is so extremist that the story, as farcical as it was, seemed totally plausible given the SPLC's track record, hence me being duped. On a side note, upon realizing the story was satire I changed the title to state that it was satire and added an update apologizing to my readers and explaining how I was duped. Any other changes made to the piece or title after that did not involve consultation with me.”

“We have no beef with people writing satirical articles, and in fact enjoy satire as much as anyone,” said Mark Potok, the SPLC senior fellow who wrote Syrmopoulos. “But it says something important about today’s right-wing media that so many are snookered so easily, and by such transparently false and ridiculous narratives. The ‘investigative journalist’ and others who credulously repeated these fairy tales as if they were actually true really ought to take up a different line of work, one that doesn’t require such mental effort.”

Sites such as National Report and Freewood Post are symptomatic of what many observers see as a growing problem on the Internet: the proliferation of fake news sites that, as the Washington Post put it, “profit — handsomely, in some cases — from duping gullible Internet users with deceptively newsy headlines. Their business model is both simple and devastatingly effective: Employ a couple unscrupulous freelancers to write fake news that’s surprising or enraging or weird enough to go viral on Facebook; run display ads against the traffic; gleefully cash in.”

And it helps, of course, to have gullible “journalists” out there to help them along.

Sovereign Citizen’s Video Shows Texas Officer Breaking Out Window After Repeated Requests For ID

[Cross-posted at Hatewatch.]

A self-described “sovereign citizen” recently posted a video of his May arrest in Addison, Texas, by a local police officer, ostensibly to display police misbehavior as the policeman breaks out his car’s window and handcuffs him.

What the video actually seems to demonstrate instead, however, is how delusional the sovereign citizen worldview really is, and how police are ultimately driven to harsh measures in order to simply enforce traffic laws in ordinary encounters with these “true believers.”

The video shows the May 2 arrest of 49-year-old Scott Richardson after being pulled over for allegedly driving 50 mph in a 40 mph zone. Recorded by Richardson on his cell phone, it shows him arguing with the Addison officer for over four minutes before the policeman gets out his baton and breaks the driver’s side window and pulls the man from the car. At that point, the phone appears to fall onto a seat, recording the sounds of Richardson being put in handcuffs and the officer who made the arrest discussing the matter with a fellow officer.

During the course of the interchange, the officer requests the man show him his driver’s license and proof of insurance a total of 15 times before he gets out his baton, makes the same request a final time, and begins breaking the window.

Throughout the exchange, Richardson refuses the request, instead attempting to interrogate the officer.

“Mmkay, let me ask you a question,” Richardson says. “As a man, what right do you have to stop another man?” When the officer explains that the state of Texas gives him the authority, Richardson goes on to claim that speeding is not illegal in the state.

“I’m speeding? Did you realize that in the State of Texas, speeding in and of itself is not illegal?” he says.

As the Houston Chronicle notes, that is not what Texas law says: the Texas transportation code allows government to enforce speed limits.

Richardson also claims in the video that the 1979 U.S. Supreme Court case, Brown v. Texas, established that law enforcement officers are not allowed to demand a citizen's identification unless he was seen committing a felony. Actually, the case established that officers needed probable cause to detain and ID a citizen, and speeding qualifies as such.

The officer again asks for his ID, and again warns Richardson that he is facing arrest for failure to identify himself. Instead, Richardson keeps trying to question the policeman.

“Mmkay, I’m still having to ask you a question here,” Richardson says.

“That’s not how this works,” the officer responds.

“That is how this works,” Richardson insists.

Eventually, the officer shouts at the man to demand he identify himself or he will break the window open, drawing his baton and raising it. When Richardson keeps babbling into his phone, the window is broken open, the officer opens the door, and the phone falls to the floor. You can then hear the officers telling the man to stay down and then applying handcuffs and telling him he is being charged with failure to identify.

After a few more minutes, the officer can be heard conversing with another policeman, explaining that the matter was just a simple traffic stop: “All he had to do was give me his driver’s license! He was giving me that Republic of Texas crap, saying I had stopped him illegally and I don’t have the right to detain him.”

“This was for speeding?” the other officer asks.

“Yeah, that’s all it was,” the officer says. “All it was.”

A little later, he muses: “I should have known when I saw the back window. All the stickers. All that stuff.”

‘Patriots’ Declare Victory for Oregon Mine After Judge Issues Stay for BLM Enforcement

[Cross-posted at Hatewatch.]

A judge’s order requiring the Bureau of Land Management to refrain from enforcing its regulations while the dispute over the Sugar Pine Mine in southwestern Oregon is being adjudicated appears to be enough for the assembled antigovernment “Patriots” who have shown up on the scene to declare victory and head for home.

“Mission Accomplished” now declares the header over the website of the Oath Keepers of Josephine County, the local organization that had made a national callout the month before for other Oath Keepers and likeminded antigovernment zealots to show up to defend the mine from the supposed plans of the BLM to destroy the mine and kick out its owners. The day before, the headline had read: “STAND DOWN.”

“Our initial mission has been a success... however this is just the first of many missions we are still working on,” the website proclaims.

The declarations of victory came with a stay issued on Wednesday by James Roberts, an administrative law judge with the Interior Land Board of Appeals, which began handling the case of the Sugar Pine mine last month when the mine’s owners filed their appeal of the letter of non-compliance that the BLM had issued regarding their operations earlier this year.

Rick Barclay, one of the mine’s owners and their chief spokesman, called off the effort to protect his mine. “If this is indeed everything the attorney asked for, this will de-escalate the situation for the time being," Barclay told the Medford Mail Tribune. "It may mean my guests will be going back to their daily lives."

Even as the miners filed their appeal last month, the BLM had been clear that it never intended to enforce the regulations until the issue had been entirely adjudicated, which is its standard operating procedure. So when Barclay and his attorneys filed their appeal last month – including the request for a stay of enforcement – the BLM did not oppose it.

In spite of all that, Barclay has insisted that he has been at risk of having the BLM burn down his cabin at the mine, which is why he asked for armed militiamen to help protect it.

"Camp Defiance" participant with rifle, Oregon

On their Facebook pages, the “Patriots” took to gloating, with Barclay, Idaho III Percent leader Brandon Curtiss, and Eric “EJ” Parker – one of the III Percent movement followers who came to Oregon, and who was notorious as one of the supposed sniper-rifle owners who drew down on federal agents at the Bundy Ranch standoff in Nevada – posting a photo of the three men flipping off their critics.

“From us to you BLM... oh lets not forget the Southern Poverty Law Center and Routers,” the message read. “Looks like the Judge agreed with us!! Granted stay of appeal states you have no jurisdiction or right to terrorize that man!! you'll be getting our bill for the cost of WE THE PEOPLE mounting an EFFECTIVE resistance to your threats. Thats two for two facists!! See you next time.”

The result of the national callout was an encampment next to Interstate 5 the organizers took to calling “Camp Defiance.” Its camo-clad participants and their multitudes of guns, as well as their intimidating attitudes and behavior, had created growing concern among some of the longtime residents and business owners in the area. Some of them held a press conference to express their concerns, at which some of the “Patriots” showed up and began heckling them.

Those concerns only escalated, though, when a helicopter flying in the vicinity of the Sugar Pine mine set off a full-scale alarm among the “Patriots,” who feared the BLM was about to descend upon them with troops and SWAT teams and wipe them out with black helicopters. That turned out to just be another landowner flying a helicopter nearby.

Stewart Rhodes, the national leader and founder of the Oath Keepers, took note of the “victory” in Oregon as a way to explain why the organization’s main website had been hacked that day by vandals who posted obscene material under the group’s name.

“Clearly, what we are doing is ticking off our enemies,” Rhodes wrote. “When you get attacked like this – when you get flack – that is how you know you are over the target.   We won’t let it slow us down.   At the moment, I am at the Sugarpine Mine in Josephine County OR, where the miners have just attained a victory by securing a judge imposed stay, that forbids the BLM from entering the property for purposes of destruction of private property.   A victory. No wonder we are being hacked. Clearly the domestic enemies of the Republic are not happy.”

According to the Mail-Tribune, the Oath Keepers intend to keep up a prominent presence at this weekend’s Boatnik Parade in Grants Pass, where it will be marching and passing out pocket editions of the U.S. Constitution. Rhodes is reportedly planning to be in attendance.

Fox-Driven Outrage Over ASU Professor’s Course on ‘Whiteness’ Drew Threats, Neo-Nazi Activists

[Cross-posted at Hatewatch.]

English professor Lee Bebout intended to be thought-provoking when he offered a course at Arizona State University (ASU) titled “Race Theory and the Problem of Whiteness.” He had no idea that it would also provoke the wrath of, first, Fox News viewers, and then, white supremacists, sparking protests on campus, and yet ultimately drawing the explicit support of ASU administrators.

English professor Lee Bebout

But that’s what happened after Bebout listed the course for ASU’s spring semester. Now, having survived a barrage of hate mail and protests, he can only say he’s relieved the ordeal appears to be over.

“I’ve been a lot less stressed lately,” he told Hatewatch. “There were moments of anxiety in the beginning of all this, but once I got support from folks, the anxiety subsided tremendously.”

The problem began a little while after the course was listed, when an ASU student named Lauren Clark wrote a blog post for Campus Reform, a right-wing organization founded by David Horowitz and Morton Blackwell’s Leadership Institute. The institute is devoted to policing American campuses for “the conduct and misconduct of university administrators, faculty, and students.”

The next day, Clark appeared on Fox News with host Elisabeth Hasselbeck to attack Bebout’s course in more explicit terms.

Clark and Hasselbeck listed the texts — which included such titles as The Possessive Investment in Whiteness, Critical Race Theory, Everyday Language of White Racism, Playing in the Dark, and The Alchemy of Race and Rights — and Clark said they suggested a trend: “All of these books have a disturbing trend and that’s pointing to white people as a root cause of social injustices for this country.”

“Clearly we have a lot of work to go, as a society, in terms of racial tension,” Clark continued. “But having a class that suggests an entire race is the problem is inappropriate, wrong, and, frankly, counterproductive. I wonder what students like myself are taking out of this course when they learn all about all this negative racial tension out in society. There’s a lot of negative implications here.”

In reality, the course is a fairly standard academic study of race in modern society. As ASU administrators explained at the time the controversy erupted: "This course uses literature and rhetoric to look at how stories shape people's understandings and experiences of race. It encourages students to examine how people talk about – or avoid talking about – race in the contemporary United States. This is an interdisciplinary course, so students will draw on history, literature, speeches and cultural changes – from scholarly texts to humor. The class is designed to empower students to confront the difficult and often thorny issues that surround us today and reach thoughtful conclusions rather than display gut reactions. A university is an academic environment where we discuss and debate a wide array of viewpoints."

Within hours of the segment having aired, Bebout and ASU were barraged with hate mail from around the country. Some of the messages included threats; one of special note contained a cryptic religious message suggesting the professor deserved to be murdered.

But that was just the beginning. A short time later, members of a neo-Nazi youth organization called the National Youth Front (NYF), a youth-oriented arm of the white nationalist organization American Freedom Party, began plastering the ASU campus with fliers featuring Bebout’s portrait and the stark label “Anti-White.” They also went to Bebout’s neighborhood and distributed them there.

An NYF spokesman, Angelo John Gage, told Talking Points Memo that their “Operation Bad Teacher” program targeted Bebout because his course was “racist.” (Gage himself has a long history of racism and anti-Semitism, including stints on The White Voice, a white nationalist website, and Stormfront.) He also claimed none of his members had threatened Bebout.

"No longer will we have our identity destroyed and our people defamed," declared NYF's website. "This week, several of National Youth Front's members went to ASU to raise awareness that we will no longer tolerate this antiwhite agenda. Over four hundred fliers were delivered over several days to both Lee Bebout's neighborhood and ASU." A local NYF member who called himself “John Hess” admitted to being the person seen in a video promoting the campaign.

Early in March, when ASU students organized a protest in support of the embattled professor Bebout’s course, as well as the work of an associate professor at the school named Robert Poe, “Hess” and a cadre of like-minded right-wing extremists showed up on the ASU campus to counter-protest. While Bebout maintained a low profile throughout the ordeal, Poe went out and confronted his antagonists face to face.

University administrators at the time remained mostly mum in the face of the controversy, leading some academics from other schools where similar courses are taught to wonder why Bebout had been “left out to dry.”

“I haven’t seen the administration come to his defense in the way that I would expect any university to do when an employee and his family are facing death threats,” Purdue University professor Bill Mullen told TPM.

But recently, the ASU administration has emerged from its shell to offer a robust defense – and expressions of support – for Bebout and the course.

ASU President Michael Crow told the student paper, the State Press, that he and a vice provost both examined the course carefully and found that it was well within the framework the school hoped to offer academically.

“[The] course looked like a pretty good critical thinking course to me,” Crow said. “It looked like it was doing what it was supposed to do, which is to deal with a complex subject through literature and get students interested in talking and writing and thinking about that complex subject.”

ASU administrator James Rund co-authored a letter that appeared in The Arizona Republic condemning recent manifestations of racist hate groups: “There have been a series of hate speech incidents over recent weeks in Tempe and Mesa, orchestrated by Neo-Nazi groups and hate preachers. Some of the incidents included anti-Black, anti-immigrant, anti-LGBT and anti-Muslim speech and intimidation. This behavior and these sentiments do not reflect the values of our community.”

Crow also made note of these outside influences: “They don’t represent our values; they don’t represent the way we think," he said. "So we can ask them to stop, but they don’t have to.”

Bebout said the community support he’s received has been tremendous. “It’s been really amazing,” he said. “Obviously people at ASU have been solid, but people from all over the country (and other countries) who do this sort of work or see a value in it have reached out as well.”

Bebout told Hatewatch that he would be offering the course again in the future, likely in Spring 2016, with some adjustments: “I’ll be tweaking the syllabus a bit now that I had a chance to give it a run through with undergraduates.”

He noted that many observers of the interaction between mainstream conservatism and far-right extremism have focused on how white supremacists “code and frame their rhetoric in ways that make them acceptable to mainstream news sources.”

“My situation seems to show that the inverse is also true,” Bebout noted. “Fox News, Campus Reform, and other organizations give cover and provide ‘research’ and ‘facts’ for white supremacist groups.”

Bebout explained that he and a graduate student had been carefully following white supremacist/nationalist sites even before the controversy erupted, and particularly afterward.

“Since my class came under the attention of white supremacists, I noticed that NYF and other groups regularly post stories from Fox News and Campus Reform as ‘proof’ for their ideology,” he said. “While these outlets like Fox News and Campus Reform certainly use different rhetoric than National Youth Front, it would be erroneous to say that they are completely separate discursively or ideologically (one being colorblind and the other being explicitly racist). Indeed, I am fascinated with how much they share in common in terms of rhetoric and ideology.”

Fears of Black Helicopters and Mercenaries Fuel Oregon Oath Keepers’ Paranoia

[Cross-posted at Hatewatch.]

It wasn’t exactly a black helicopter, but it was close enough to spook the Oath Keepers keeping watch on the Sugar Pine Mine in southern Oregon.

Someone flew a private helicopter over a tract of land near the mine north of Grants Pass last week and set off a panic among the assembled “Patriots” – Oath Keepers, so-called “III Percenters,” and various other militiamen. And somehow, in militialand, this translated into a certainty that not one, but three helicopters were circling the mine and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) was bringing in “troops.”

The militia gathered issued a coded call to arms, bringing the entire collection of would-be defenders rushing to the armed encampment’s staging area near the town of Merlin, bristling with guns and ready for action.

“THIS IS NOT A DRILL. CODE WORDS HAVE JUST BEEN GIVEN THAT OR MINE IS IN DISTRESS. ANY PATRIOTS IN THE AREA. ROLL OUT. ANYONE WHO CAN GO BETTER” read the callout on Facebook.

But according to Josephine County Sheriff Dave Daniel, it was all a false alarm. The helicopter did not belong to the BLM or any government agency, but instead was privately owned. It was landing on a mountain far from the Sugar Pine Mine.

Daniel told the Grants Pass Daily Courier that Oath Keepers leader Joseph Rice personally checked on the reports about the supposed three helicopters circling the mine and found nothing to them. Rice told his compatriots on the ground to “stand down.”

The armed encampment is already something of an exercise in groundless paranoia. The collection of “Patriots” are there because they believe they need to protect the mine’s owners – Rick Barclay and George Baskes – from having their property destroyed by the BLM while the question of the surface rights to the mine are being adjudicated. A nationwide callout went out among Oath Keepers two weeks ago, on the anniversary of the Bundy Ranch standoff, bringing a collection of militiamen from around the country to the little Oregon town of Merlin.

However, while the BLM has in fact burned down old mining cabins in the region after it has obtained a court order enabling it to do so, there is no record of it having done so while the issue was still in court.

Yet despite being in the midst of a lengthy due process over their mining rights, the mine owners insist they need the Oath Keepers’ presence to keep the BLM from coming in and destroying their property while they are in court. The Oath Keepers in turn proclaim that they are there to protect the miners’ “Fifth Amendment rights to due process” from being violated. The BLM, for its part, denies it has any intention on attempting to remove the miners from their claim while the matter is in court.

The paranoia at the camp has been ratcheting up steadily. A series of bulletins issued from the camp and published at a Patriot website have focused on the militiamen’s beliefs that the BLM had sent in a squad of mercenaries who were preparing to wipe them out.

The security operation underway at the Sugar Pine Mine, outside of Grants Pass, Oregon has gone from a simple site security operation to possibly a defensive detail. The reason stated for the change to the operation comes from the confirmation that BLM brought in private, armed military contractors and set up a 24 hour surveillance team to openly watch the command center located next to Interstate 5 in Merlin, Oregon.

The important distinction to make is that these people are not law enforcement officers but private contractors. Hired guns to put it quite simply. Oath Keepers has not escalated any activity so the question must be asked, why did BLM bring in these people if they do not intend to use the resources? Why are they in Grants Pass, Oregon? The situation has gone from a peaceful resistance to one that potentially becomes volatile in nature.

Later, the reports calmed down somewhat: “Much speculation has been undertaken regarding the scope and purpose of these security contractors. At this time, the Oath Keepers Josephine County wishes to express no opinion on the matter of the purpose of the armed contractors. They are under observation and no action is being taken beyond that.”

The incident with the helicopter followed shortly.

Local residents have already held a press conference asking for the armed encampment to disband and go home because of the fearfulness they bring to their community.

Sheriff Daniel – who is himself a member in good standing of Richard Mack’s Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, which is allied with the Oath Keepers – told the Courier that the episode is “exactly the type of incident he’s been fearing ever since Oath Keepers issued a national callout earlier this month.”

“I want everybody to understand that things like this are dangerous,” he said, adding, “You never know what could happen in an accident.”

Oath Keepers Come Out to Heckle Oregon Residents Who Want Armed Gathering to Disband

[Cross-posted at Hatewatch.]

Perturbed by the influx of armed militiamen bristling with guns and angry rhetoric into their normally quiet little town, residents of rural Josephine County, Oregon, are fighting back, asking the assorted “Oath Keepers” and other “Patriots” who have arrived recently to ostensibly defend a local miner to pack their bags and leave.

As if to prove their point, a number of Oath Keepers showed up on the scene last week and heckled local residents, intimidating them into retreating through the courthouse where they had stood to hold a news conference on Friday.

The community residents – who included a sporting-goods business owner, a former dean at the local community college, and several local church leaders, each of whom read a prepared statement – spoke to reporters outside the Josephine County Courthouse in Grants Pass.

“Certainly the miners are entitled to get their fair day in court and not have anything done to them until after the legal process, but they don’t need gun toting people coming around, threatening the whole community,” said Jerry Reid, a former dean of Rogue Community College.

The news conference, held in response to the rally organized by the mine’s supporters outside Bureau of Land Management offices in nearby Medford on Thursday, was organized by a local man named Alex Budd, who told Hatewatch he simply was concerned about what he was observing in the community and on the conspiracy theory corners of the Internet, where the hopes of another Bundy Ranch-style armed standoff run high.

“I want to acknowledge that it takes courage to be here today,” Budd said in introductory remarks to the press. “I think we all know that here in Josephine County, we’re very diverse folks, and you can find people of just about every stripe. One thing I think we all agree on is that we should not be afraid or intimidated within our own communities to speak to our neighbors.

“But that’s where we find ourselves today. And that in itself tells you that what’s happening here is wrong.”

“Over the last few years, I’ve gotten more and more questions from my customers about the safety of coming to Josephine County to recreate,” sporting goods business owners Dave Strahan said, describing how his work required him to travel the region widely. What he called the presence of “nutty, tough-acting, gun-toting thugs” is driving away visitors by reinforcing the perception that southwestern Oregon is a dangerous place.



Joseph Rice, coordinator of the county’s Oath Keepers chapter and one of the leaders of the Patriot encampment outside of Grants Pass, near the road leading to the disputed mine, began heckling the speakers as they took questions from reporters.

“Have any of you ever talked to the miners?” he demanded to know. When Strahan retorted: “I’m not here to answer your questions, Joseph,” Rice nonetheless persisted. “If I understand correctly, you’ve never spoken to the miners?”

According to Budd, at that point others in the small crowd joined in. He said that Brandon Curtiss of the local III Percent chapter “came up to me right afterwards with Joseph Rice and was filming me on his cell phone, and they were trying to heckle.” He said another local Patriot started ranting at him, at which point Budd and the rest of the group retreated back through the courthouse, because “we didn’t want to let it turn into a shouting match.” He said another Patriot kept sticking a camera into his face as he tried to conduct an interview with a local TV reporter.

“It was blatantly clear they were there to try and intimidate people,” Budd said. “They were shouting that we were wrong and sticking cameras in the faces of community members to record them. It was definitely meant to be intimidating; our group went back inside the courthouse and everyone left out a back door because they didn’t want to have to walk through them again.”

Afterwards, Rice and his fellow Oath Keepers held court with the press. “These groups coming in or not pushing any national agenda, the mining owners came directly to us and asked for assistance. Here’s the fact of the reality: if the BLM was following constitutional due process this never would have occurred,” Rice told reporters.

Former Josephine County Sheriff Gil Gilbertson – a longtime leading member of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, the “Patriot” law-officers group led by former Sheriff Richard Mack – was among the faces in the crowd. He told reporters he had made several trips to the mine.

“Nobody’s talking about violence. They’re not here for violence. They’re here to make a point and that point is the federal government has overstepped some of its bounds,” said Gilbertson.
At the center of the dispute is the Sugar Pine Mine, whose owners – Rick Barclay and George Backes – received in March a “letter of noncompliance” from the BLM informing them they needed get their operation into compliance with federal regulations for mining on federal land. The letter gave the owners three options: to cease operations and clean up and leave; to bring their operation into compliance; or to file an appeal of the BLM’s finding with either its regional chief or with a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit of Appeals.

The mine’s owners filed the paperwork for the latter option on Wednesday, and then on Thursday told the assembled supporters and the press that they were being denied their rights to due process. Barclay in particular has been adamant in claiming that the BLM would come in and remove his equipment and destroy his cabin even while the process was being adjudicated.

“Just because I turned in my paperwork doesn’t mean the BLM won’t come up there tomorrow and set everything on fire,” he told Hatewatch.

Mary Emerick, the Josephine County Oath Keepers’ spokeswoman, issued a statement decrying the press conference: “We are not seeing armed men with long guns in our city. We are not bringing demonstrators into the city. In fact, we carefully screen our volunteers. We have asked that if you come with a different agenda or to stir up trouble, DO NOT COME, we do not want you. We are keeping the peace. We are protecting the mine from a specific threat and we are assuring that due process takes place.”

In the meantime, the “III Percenters” from Idaho responded to the conference by compiling a video of support from locals who say they are happy the Oath Keepers are present.





Indeed, southern Oregon has been a hotbed of “Patriot” organizing for many years, dating back to the Klamath water dispute of 2001, and more recently of Oath Keepers-based organizing. If the Oath Keepers follow the mine owners’ wishes and keep up their encampment until the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals hears his case – an event likely to occur more than a year from now – then they will be there a good long time.

‘Patriots’ Rally For Oregon Mine Owners Turns Out a Tepid Affair

The big anti-BLM rally in Medford drew about 50 protesters.

[Cross-posted at Hatewatch.]

So much for a repeat of the Bundy Ranch standoff.

A collection of about 50 antigovernment “Patriots” gathered Thursday in the parking lot of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) office in Medford, OR, to protest what they believe was the federal government’s “tyrannical” treatment of miners in the region.

But the organizers of the affair were adamant they were uninterested in a standoff with federal authorities similar to the confrontation between BLM agents and hundreds of heavily armed “Patriots” a year ago at Cliven Bundy’s ranch in Nevada. All they wanted, organizers claimed, was to defend ordinary citizens from federal abuses.

Joseph Rice

“You have untrained people, uneducated people, throwing around their weight, abusing people who are trying to earn a living, and they think it’s OK,” Joseph Rice, coordinator for the Josephine County chapter of Oath Keepers, told about 50 people gathered. “I took an oath to uphold the Constitution against enemies foreign and domestic, and a domestic enemy is anyone who will abuse someone’s rights within that Constitution.”

Rice added, “Today it is the BLM, because they did not allow the due process to occur. They need to seriously look at their administrative process and procedures and address that. It’s a cultural issue. We saw it a year ago. Here we are again today. It doesn’t seem to be willing to change or improve that.”

At issue is a dispute between the BLM and the owners of the Sugar Pine Mine near Merlin, Ore., who were given a “letter of noncompliance” last spring telling them they either needed to clear out of the mine within 60 days or file an appeal of the ruling that they were not in compliance with BLM mining regulations.

What followed was a nationwide callout to defend a couple of miners in imminent danger of having their constitutional right to due process destroyed by the BLM, according to the local chapter of the Oath Keepers that made the plea. And they called it a “security operation” because owner Rick Barclay insisted that the BLM was notorious for burning down miners’ cabins in the backwoods, and he believes they would have destroyed his mine if he had not called for help.

BLM spokesman Jim Whittington told Hatewatch that these were absurdly groundless fears. “The idea that we would go in on Friday and wipe everything off the claim is just not true,” he said. “It has no basis in reality.”

There were few guns on display, and no threats or intimidation. A large group of black-clad “III Percent” movement followers from Idaho made their presence known, but the crowd and the speakers remained relatively sedate. Even with such sedate activists, the BLM and the U.S. Forest Service closed their joint offices as a precautionary measure. Only five people spoke, including both of the mine owners and two local Oath Keepers. Within an hour, everyone was gone.

Rick Barclay

The issue persists, however. The miners and the “Patriots” insist the BLM’s issuance of a letter of non-compliance amounts to a denial of due process, and the Oath Keepers have insisted their presence is about “defending the Fifth Amendment rights” of the miners.

Rick Barclay, one of the mine owners, told Hatewatch that the BLM had violated his due process in the letter. “They short-circuited the due process by telling me I have to remove my equipment before I ever even get a hearing,” he said.

However, the letter of noncompliance is clear that removal of the cabin and equipment are only among the mine owners’ three options, and says at the end: “If you do not agree and are adversely affected by this decision you may ask for a review by the State Director … or you may appeal to the Interior Board of Land Appeals.”

Barclay filed paperwork in his appeals process on Wednesday, but indicated that he hoped the Oath Keepers would stay on site until he actually has a hearing. “After I get my day in court and get a stay, then they will go home,” he said. “Just because I turned in my paperwork doesn’t mean the BLM won’t come up there tomorrow and set everything on fire.”