Military Veterans, the Republican Party, and January 6—a New Chapter in the Story
"In an April 27 article for The Washington Spectator, “All Enemies Foreign and Domestic,” I set out to trace the enduring influence of conspiracy theories that took root among military officers on the far right after the disaster in Vietnam, then morphed into present-day extremist and paramilitary movements, and inspired many of those who led the failed Capitol insurrection on January 6.
It’s easy, and entirely justified, to denounce congressional Republicans for blocking an independent bipartisan investigation into those events. Who incited whom to do what and when? What did they do on the day of the attack? What degree of shared belief and active collusion was there between elected Republican officials, QAnon conspiracy theorists, and the cutting edge of the assault—the organized groups of military veterans like the Oath Keepers, who led the disciplined “stack” that led the charge up the Capitol steps? The role of these groups, and the degree of far-right and white supremacist activity within the military, would have been a central focus of any investigation, and is already a priority for the Defense Department.
But if the commission had been limited to the events of January 6, it would have missed much of the point. The biggest risk here is not that we fail to understand what happened in the past and breathe a sigh of relief that American democracy dodged a bullet. It’s that we don’t recognize what some have called a process of “ongoing incitement.” The main significance of January 6 is that it failed. But failure is a learning experience, and those who propelled the insurrection are determined not to fail again. In that sense, the storming of the Capitol was not a culmination: it was one event in a sequence, even a dress rehearsal, just as the invasion of the Michigan State Capitol by armed militants last April can be seen as a dry run for January 6.
The gutting and takeover of the party has progressed in plain sight since January 6, embodied in the state-level drive to curtail voting rights and driven by the zeal of the two-thirds of Republican voters who have embraced Trump’s Big Lie of a stolen election. The advance of the “cutting edge”—the military veterans of the Vietnam era and their present-day acolytes, however, has been less visible, though no less real. Perhaps the most important, though scantly reported, manifestation of this has been the emergence of a new group of retired officers called Flag Officers 4 America—“flag officers” meaning generals and admirals. . .
On June 1, the group issued a Citizen’s Action Plan for America, “to put constitutional government back in the hands of ‘We the People.’” The laundry list of actions focuses on elections, education, law enforcement and organizing “within church groups, among church groups, and outside church groups.” It urges supporters to volunteer as poll workers and watchers and to work for the election of “those with traditional values” at all levels of the party apparatus: county commissioners and county clerks; mayors and city council members; and party precinct officers, as well as “electing sheriffs and DA’s who will constitutionally enforce the rule of law and will resist state and federal mandates infringing on Constitutional Rights of citizens.” In the educational sphere, it demands that parents wrest power away from school boards and teachers’ unions to “remove critical race theory and 1619 project teaching” and “insist on fact-based teaching of climate change and our national history.”
> As Arbuckle’s long interview with Steve Bannon progressed, the underlying logic of the flag officers’ argument became clearer and more chilling. The foundational principle of the American armed forces is that they are obedient to the elected commander-in-chief and civilian authority. But what if the election was stolen, and the commander-in-chief is illegitimate? Soldiers are then left with two options: to accept this or to resign. Furthermore, Arbuckle went on, “cultural Marxism” was now eating away at the military itself, symbolized by the appointment of Bishop Garrison, an African American former human rights advocate, as senior adviser to the secretary of defense for diversity, equity, and inclusion.
“You’re the tip of the spear,” Bannon told Arbuckle, wrapping up the interview. “And we’re a platform and an apparatus for you heroes and patriots.”
Left unspoken was the third option: neither accept nor resign but disobey and resist. Some radical veterans will say this openly. “If you vote your way into socialism,” says one former Special Forces officer in a recently formed paramilitary group, “you have to shoot your way out.”
This new organization, 1st Amendment Praetorian, represents a further stage in the continuing evolution of veteran-centered far-right groups. It has much in common with the Oath Keepers ...The group’s leader, Robert Patrick Lewis, a combat veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, says that the group was founded last October and provided security and intelligence, including the high-tech surveillance of protesters, to a string of Stop the Steal, MAGA, and other “patriot” rallies in the weeks following the election.
By January, it had organized a security detachment for retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn—who helped raise funds for the group—and Trump’s lawyer Sidney Powell. It performed this function at a Memorial Day weekend rally in Dallas where Flynn mooted the idea of a Myanmar-style military coup in the United States.
What comes next, according to the group’s website, is a “Coalition to Defend America” event in Palm Beach, Florida, on July 4 and the formation, together with “constitutional sheriffs,” of grassroots “resilience groups, training them to free the oppressed.” . . .
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The Kraken is on the move!
Former Trump Lawyer Facing Sanctions In Michigan Now Saying The Things She Said Were Opinions Are Actually Facts
from the chronic-self-inflicted-foot-injuries-now-traveling-to-mouth-area dept
Former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell -- last seen being sued by a voting machine maker after making (and filing) a bunch of baseless claims about a "stolen" election -- is headed to Detroit, Michigan. There will be some more Michigan-focused courtroom action, but it won't be Powell playing offense.
Sidney Powell and other attorneys who defended former President Trump’s false claims about the 2020 presidential election have been summoned for a sanctions hearing in a Michigan federal court.
On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Linda Parker ordered the attorneys to appear at a hearing on July 6, according to court documents.
This case for sanctions has been building for months, beginning late last year after Powell (and several others) filed a bunch of BS lawsuits in Michigan courts seeking to overturn election results. The state's sanctions complaints were compiled with the inadvertent assistance of Powell herself, whose response to Dominion's defamation lawsuit was to assert that no reasonable person would believe the outlandish claims she made about the voting machine maker.
Unfortunately for Powell, that group of "reasonable" people apparently included the judges presiding over lawsuits she filed late last year. Claiming you're really in the business of dispensing hyperbole and rhetoric may play well when faced with defamation allegations, but it plays much worse in courts where you're the plaintiff trying to convince a judge these same statements are potentially verifiable facts.
Even with all of this going on, Powell just won't quit making things worse for herself. As Jacob Sullum reports for Reason, Powell recently attended a conference in Dallas, Texas where she claimed all the stuff she just finished telling Dominion was nothing more than heated rhetoric mostly free of facts is actually a bunch of facts she stands behind . . .She predicted that Dominion's lawsuit will be dismissed because "we meant what we said, and we have the evidence to back it up." If the lawsuit proceeds, she added, "then we will get discovery against Dominion, and we will be on offense."
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Far-right activist Ammon Bundy announces run for Idaho governor
Sign of rightward trend of politics in the rural and Republican-dominated state
Sign of rightward trend of politics in the rural and Republican-dominated state
The far-right anti-government activist and militia figure Ammon Bundy has announced a bid to be governor of Idaho governor in a further sign of the rightward trend of politics in the rural and Republican-dominated state.
The Stetson-wearing activist said he wants to defend Idaho from “Joe Biden and those in the Deep State that control him” because they “are going to try to take away our gun rights, freedom of religion, parental rights, and more and further violate the constitution in unimaginable ways even more than they’ve already done.”
There is little evidence to back up Bundy’s sentiments which reflect paranoid ideas common on the US far right. Idaho, which has long had a tradition of anti-government and pro-militia sentiment, is seen as being one of the most rightwing Republican states in the US, especially in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic which has seen rightwing groups fight health measures like wearing masks.
Bundy and his family gained fame in 2014, when they engaged in an armed standoff with Bureau of Land Management agents at their Bunkerville, Nevada, ranch amid a dispute over his father Cliven Bundy’s refusal to pay grazing fees.
Ammon, brother Ryan and Cliven Bundy were indicted and served jail time, but they later acquitted.
He gained further recognition in 2016 over a protest at the the Malheur national wildlife refuge – part of a campaign to force the federal government to turn public land over to states.
Bundy was arrested twice last year at Idaho’s state capitol after leading a march to protest Idaho’s stay-at-home order and later charged with criminal trespass for disrupting a meeting of the state legislature. In April this year he was arrested again over a similar encounter. He has pleaded not guilty in one case and has not yet entered a plea in the second.
Bundy filed documents last month indicating plans to run. He will probably face competition. The current Idaho governor, Brad Little, Lt Governor Janice McGeachin and four other Republicans Jeff Cotton, Edward Humphreys, Lisa Marie and Cody Usabel have also filed papers.
But the Idaho Republican party chairman, Tom Luna, said this month that Bundy is not welcome among GOP ranks, KTVB reported, pointing to Bundy’s failure to register as a Republican before at the time he filed initial campaign paperwork. . ."
The report notes that the increasing rates of suicide for both veterans and active duty personnel are outpacing those of the general population - an alarming shift, as suicide rates among service members have historically been lower than suicide rates among the general population. 
