The Ron Paulian refugees of Oathkeepers are back in Ferguson this summer, according to the Washington Times which mischaracterizes the organization;
The Oath Keepers organization said its members — all former military, police and first responders — pledged to “defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” NBC reported Tuesday.
[…]
Members of the group, mostly white males, were seen carrying assault rifles and side arms and wearing bulletproof vests and camouflage.
Yes, they are mostly white, much like the Ron Paul campaign rallies that I covered a few years ago. But, they are NOT “all former military, police and first responders”. Most of them are AirSofter-like pretenders who will welcome any excuse to parade around in camouflage with loaded weapons in public. Many of them are not veterans, or they have spotty military records, some have spent time in military confinement facilities for being anti-social. As near as I can tell, Oathkeepers doesn’t verify the military service of their membership. I’m guessing its the same for their first-responder membership, as well.
Our first encounter with the organization came when they were supporting Iraq Veterans Against the War. So much for keeping oaths – at the time IVAW was encouraging military members to refuse to their deployment orders. The Oathkeepers supported the candidacy of IVAW member Adam Kokesh when he ran as a Republican for a New Mexico congressional seat.
The group said they had come to protect a journalist from Infowars.com, The Daily Mail reported.
Crackpottery. The police have said that they don’t want the Oathkeepers there, but, you know, what the Oathkeepers want is more important than what their supposed brothers in uniform want. Allying themselves with Infowars makes them much more credible.
The above picture of Stanley Blaine Hicks, they call him Blaine Cooper because that’s what he goes by these days, is from a video where he calls for the arrest of John McCain for treason;
In a subsequent video that has now been removed from the internet, the interviewer calls Hicks/Cooper a Marine. Hicks/Cooper, however, says that he has never been a Marine;
Well, that’s certainly true. But according to the Marine Corps he enlisted in the Delayed Entry Program, but then dropped off the face of the earth and never showed up for boot camp, which explains why he probably changed his name in January 2006.
Well, that and the fact that Stanley Hicks has 16 arrests and convictions in Arizona whereas Blaine Cooper only has one felony arrest and conviction in Arizona.
So, technically, he’s not a phony, in that he was never a Marine and admits that fact, but these are the types that Oathkeepers lionize as heroes of their cause. I’m pretty sure that Stanley Blaine took an oath to show up for Marine Corps training and then disregarded that oath (to the Marine Corps’ benefit, ultimately) so who the f*** is he to tell everyone else to honor their oaths?
Here’s his comment on another blog post that triggered this investigation.
According to Stuart Rhodes, the ED of Oathkeepers, Hicks/Cooper is not a member of Oathkeepers, but he wears the T-shirts, and likes to hang out with them. So that was my mistake to say that he was a member of Oathkeepers – he’s only gay for Oathkeepers.
Several months ago, back during the Ferguson thing, this guy popped up on CNN and several other venues, mostly because he was a cop in Missouri and this talk he gave to Oathkeepers in Saint Louis in 2012.
Yeah, that video is more than an hour long, so you probably won’t watch it. Just take my word for it that he claims that he was drafted in 1968, that he became Special Forces, that he’s served in every war since then. That he’s the senior enlisted adviser for AFRICOM, that he was in Afghanistan “before the war began”, whatever that means. He claims that he had knowledge of the 9-11 attacks thirty days before it happened. Using his claims of being an active duty sergeant major as his authority, he also says that he has specific knowledge of 18,000 Spetnaz, Russian Special Forces, training at Fort Leonard Wood, Fort Carson has 25,000 Spetznaz and Fort Polk has 1,400.
Here’s some mashed up parts of that video along with him at Ferguson and his interaction with Don Lemon of CNN;
In the picture at the top of the page, he’s wearing the patch of the U.S. Army Civil Affairs & Psychological Operations Command (Airborne), so he was probably in an Army Reserve unit.
I say “was” because SSG E tells us that he’s not listed in AKO.
According to his DD214, he wasn’t a Special Forces soldier and it says that he was activated for Afghanistan.
There is no record of him ever attending special forces training, no SF or Ranger tabs on his photo. He may or may not still be in the Reserves, but since he’s 65 years old, I’m thinking that he is not. But there is no CIB or a Combat Action Badge, so it’s not likely that he ever heard a shot fired in anger, in contrary to his claims that he has nine combat deployments. He was activated for Afghanistan, but his claims that he was in every war since Vietnam is ridiculous, looking at his records. I don’t see any Vietnam service awards in his records either.
In this picture it looks like he’s wearing a 10th SFG flash (Bad Tolz, Germany) on the beret, but that’s not a SF DUI on the flash. Also, if he was in an SF unit and on jump status, he’d be wearing a flash behind his jump wings – that’s noticeably absent.
On his website for sheriff, he lists his military training and schools. It’s very confusing. It reflects the attitude that is prevalent in the Civil Affairs community – they can do everything better than the rest of us. What the Hell is the Advanced Infantry Course?
Oathkeepers have been distancing themselves from Page since Ferguson and when the video was given some wide exposure, but, the fact remains that they invited him to speak in the first place and did nothing about Page and his crank-ass bullshit. He’s a phony speaking to their membership – but Oathkeepers doesn’t really care about the legitimacy of their members, so why should they care about the legitimacy of the folks who drive their policies.
I have several FOIA requests pending for Oathkeepers, so stand by – I’ve pretty much had it with them.
ADDED March 14, 2016; This showed up on his website yesterday;
Sunday, March 13, 2016: On my return from North Africa in 2011 I was invited to the “Have Bible Will Travel Church”, to speak before Church members, Oath Keepers and Police officers. It has been brought to my attention by a patriotic veteran that I stated that I was a “Green Beret” which is a lie. I am not a Green Beret. I did not realize that I had made such a claim, nor [do I know] what possessed me to make such a statement. I’m deeply embarrassed personally. I apologize to the church members, the Oath Keepers, Police Officers present and to all veterans and current members of the U.S Military. I take full responsibility for my action. It was not my intent to lie. I had no intention of deceit. I simply misspoke as a result of not having written notes for my speech but simply speaking off the cuff concerning numerous and various topics regarding my career which began in 1970.
When the OathKeepers first started forming up in 2008, I thought that they might be useful. I entertained thoughts about joining them. Being a cautious person, I sat back and watched them and read their website and forum for weeks before I arrived at the conclusion that they’re all a little nutty. I’ll keep my oath of enlistment without membership in that organization, thank you. Then I was a little insulted – they act like they’re the only people on the planet keeping their oath. Like Veterans for Peace act as if they’re the only veterans who want peace.
We did internet battle with them when they published an anti-military screed written by a member of the IVAW on their website. During that exchange, their founder, Stuart Rhodes, admitted that he was supporting IVAW member Adam Kokesh who was running for Congress that year. Stuart Rhodes, by the way was one of Ron Paul’s Congressional staff members before he founded the organization. In the last few weeks, some anonymous fellow who calls himself Oathkeeper, is trying to get me to retract the post we did on “Gil” Gilbertson, the former sheriff, by sending me a bunch of irrelevant BS paperwork. This fellow won’t identify himself to me, so he can go screw.
Anyway, the Oathkeepers are injecting themselves into the mess in Ferguson as if there aren’t enough mentally defective people there already. The picture above came from the Washington Post and is supposed to be an Oathkeeper perched on a roof somewhere with his scary black guns.
The St Louis Post Dispatch says the police have asked the Oathkeepers to get off of their roofs;
Police questioned group members early in the week and allowed them to stay. But Saturday, after media inquiries, St. Louis County police officers ordered the Oath Keepers to leave the rooftops.
Threatened with arrest for operating without a license, the volunteers argued but eventually left their positions early Saturday, Rhodes said.
“We are going to go back as protesters,” Rhodes said Saturday afternoon.
Rhodes, who said he is Mexican-American, stressed that Oath Keepers is not anti-government. He said the volunteers handling rooftop security in Ferguson were current or former government employees and first responders, many who have intense military, police and EMS training.
Yeah, there are many, many pretenders in Oath Keepers. They don’t check on their membership’s credentials, so you can tell them that you have “intense” training and they’ll take your word for it. Stuart Rhodes started a rumor that the feds had ordered drone strikes on the Bundy Ranch last year. They’re fans of Alex Jones and they’re rife with “truthers”. I certainly wouldn’t want one of them on my roof with a stack of firearms. At least I know what to expect from the protesters.
By the way, the New York Times reports that now that the Oath Keepers can’t park themselves on the roofs of Ferguson, they’ve decided that they’re going to join the protesters;
But on Saturday, with the county police said to be threatening the Oath Keepers with arrest, the volunteers decided to abandon their posts and instead protest against the authorities. During the evening, Mr. Andrews and some of his colleagues appeared on South Florissant Road, conducting a protest of their own. They ate pizza and stood beneath a handmade sign critical of Chief Jon Belmar of the St. Louis County police.
The other day I wrote that I don’t use blogs for sources anymore because some conservative bloggers have crossed over to the lunatic side of the discussion. Here’s another source I don’t use; The Examiner, not to be confused with the Washington Examiner. They reported as news yesterday a rumor generated by a cluster of crackpots that Eric Holder had ordered drone strikes on the Bundy Ranch. None of those people have any real inside knowledge, it’s just what they had hoped would happen, so they made it so. Here are the perpetrators;
On Friday, John Jacob Schmidt of Radio Free Redoubt said that according to Stewart Rhodes, founder of Oath Keepers, Attorney General Eric Holder has approved drone strikes against the Bundy ranch to take place some time in the next 48 hours. According to Schmidt, the information came from a source Oath Keepers has within the Department of Defense.
That source, according to the report, allegedly said Attorney General Eric Holder authorized what is known as a “hot drone strike” against the ranch. Such a strike, he added would effectively kill everyone at the ranch.
Schmidt said that as far as he could determine, there has been no attempt to follow through with the alleged threat. He also expressed hope that a planned strike against Americans on U.S. soil could be averted.
Yeah, the Oathkeepers, our sworn enemies led by former Ron Paul staffer, Stewart Rhodes, were the “source” for rumor. I wouldn’t believe Rhodes, an Adam Kokesh supporter, if my life depended on it. If you read further down the “article” you’ll see there no real reason to believe the story, it’s just a bunch of crackpots trying to stir up some shit;
Leslie Bishop Paul, the national administrator of Oath Keepers, said on Facebook the information “may, or may not” be valid, but hoped that “sunlight’ would cause federal agencies to back down from such an act.
“Pray it isn’t true and pray it never happens,” Paul added.
Liberty Beacon went on to say that such a move by the government would be the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back. The blog went on to suggest that the information might be intended to provoke violence, giving the government reason to impose martial law.
So they have no real evidence that it ever happened but the cranks are all willing to fly off the handle. Since when does anyone in the media not check their sources? Well, that’s the modus operandi of The Examiner. Their intent can only be to inflame low information voters of the Right (yeah, we’ve got some over here on our side, too).
I’ll admit that Eric Holder is a despicable person, but he does enough real shit that we don’t have to make shit up. Personally, I think that the Oathkeepers are more despicable.
While it’s wrong that Stein will probably be discharged for his indiscretions against the current President, it’s also wrong that Freedom Works, Dick Armey’s group of activists with whom I’ve worked in the past have begun dabbling in the issue. Dick Armey even flirted with my wife one night and I let that pass. But this is outside their area of expertise.
This is not a first Amendment Issue, it’s an Article II, Section 2, issue. Obama is the commander-in-chief of the military and his subordinates aren’t allowed to decide which orders they will and will not obey. There are several layers of command structure above the sergeant who will protect him from having to execute illegal orders, so there is no need for him to pronounce his intentions publicly. The American public expect us to ignore illegal orders without making a federal case of it.
I remember General John Singlaub, arguably one of the greatest of his generation of soldiers, criticized Jimmy Carter’s ruminations about withdrawing US troops from Korea and was shit canned immediately. That’s just the way it goes with soldiers.
Like I said, Freedom Works is engaging targets outside of their lane and using a member of the military as a tool with which to fight a political battle in an election year, and the troops should not have been involved in the first place, and Freedom Works is compounding that error by waving Stein’s bloody shirt, so this terminates any relationship I had with Freedom Works.
Besides, I think Stein is one of those Oathkeeper/Ron Paul f*cks anyway.
We first wrote about Marine Sergeant Gary Stein nearly two years ago when it was first reported that the Marine Sergeant thought that his political views took precedence over his career opportunities. Then we mentioned him the other day when the Marine Corps decided to make an example of him. In the interim, the Marine Corps warned Stein that his activities on line in regards to his open opposition to the President were in violation of Marine Corps and DoD policy, yet, because he’s a certified shithouse lawyer, Stein decided that he wasn’t in violation with policy and continued his behavior. Finally, he announced to his audience that he’d disregard orders that his superiors issued, if he thought those orders were illegal. Having already demonstrated his skills as a shithouse lawyer, we have an idea how that would have turned out, don’t we?
Anyway, the Military Times reports that suddenly, Stein is worried about his career;
Earlier this month, on another Facebook page for Marine weather forecasters, Stein said he would not follow certain order given by the commander in chief. This started off a renewed scrutiny of Stein, and the possibility he will be removed from service.
Despite all this, Stein has said he plans to continue updating the page, even as he faces an other than honorable discharge.
“I can be reduced in rank to a lance corporal, lose VA benefits and be forced to turn in my uniform,” Stein told Marine Corps Times after receiving word of his possible discharge. “I’m worried. I’ve got a family. I love the Marine Corps.”
He can’t love the Marine Corps as much as he loves shooting off his mouth, because he hasn’t stopped updating his opinions. Funny, but the military isn’t like civilian law enforcement. When the Marines tell you that continued bad behavior will result in punishment, they’re not kidding.
But don’t worry, SGT Stein, I’m sure that Stuart Rhodes will let you live in his basement until you get your life straightened out. You’ll learn how far that Oathkeepers Brotherhood bullshit goes, won’t you?
Tman sends us a link to an article about Camp Pendleton Marine Sgt. Gary Stein, who started a Facebook presence called “Armed Forces Tea Party” in which he expressed his opinions which were against the current administration’s policies. Apparently, his command told him that what he was doing was against DoD policy. After Stein did a self-evaluation, he determined for himself that he was within the guidelines of the policy and relaunched his Facebook page. Now, he’s surprised that he’s under the gun again;
Last week, he said his superiors told him he could not use social media sites on government computers after he posted the message stating he would not follow unlawful orders of the president.
Stein said his statement was part of an online debate about NATO allowing U.S. troops to be tried for the Quran burnings in Afghanistan.
In that context, he said, he was stating that he would not follow orders from the president if those orders included detaining U.S. citizens, disarming them or doing anything else that he believes would violate their constitutional rights.
Another Marine alerted his command about the statement, Stein said.
Stein said he respects the office of the president, but he does not agree with Obama’s policies. He said he is within his rights to speak up.
See, here’s the thing; his command told him he was doing something wrong, but the shithouse lawyer decided that he wasn’t. When you start a group, movement or march that gives the impression that you’re speaking in an official capacity (as an agent of the government), well, you’re going to get your ass in a sling. You have a right to speak your mind, just not in uniform, or as an internet presence that operates under the cloak of a military member.
When it comes to the military, if they told me I was doing something wrong and that I should stop, whether I thought I was right or not, I stopped doing it. I just didn’t need the hassle of drawing attention to myself. There is no right way or wrong way, there’s only the military’s way.
Stein sounds like he’s under the influence of those dickweeds at Oathkeepers. No one needs to remind the rest of the planet that we took an oath and stand by it…and we certainly don’t need to join a group of Paulians to make it known.
I hope Oathkeepers will pick up Stein’s legal bills and keep him in pie while he’s sitting in confinement.
