The President names his favorite anti-Obama conspiracy theory.

Courtesy of TPM:  

Obama didn't mention the U.S. Army exercise by name in an interview with former ESPNer Bill Simmons published in GQ this week. But when Simmons asked the President what he thought was the most entertaining conspiracy theory about himself, it was clear that Obama was having a laugh at the internet rumors surrounding "Jade Helm 15" that riled some southern states, particularly Texas, earlier this year. 

"That military exercises we were doing in Texas were designed to begin martial law so that I could usurp the Constitution and stay in power longer," he told Simmons. "Anybody who thinks I could get away with telling Michelle I’m going to be president any longer than eight years does not know my wife."

Yes I have to admit that the wingnuts response to Jade Helm was a thing of beauty.

Of course I am also partial to the "Obama took the oath of office on a Koran" and the "fake birth certificate" conspiracy theories as well.

Can you imagine serving two terms in what is arguably the most stressful job on the planet, while hearing people making up these crazed theories about you?

No wonder the man has grey hair. 

Have I mentioned lately how much I admire this guy?

So the Jade Helm 15 exercises ended today. How is Obama's takeover of Texas going?

Courtesy of Right Wing Watch:  

For most of the summer, a military training exercise called Jade Helm 15 captivated the imaginations of the Right, striking fear into the hearts of Republican presidential candidates, members of Congress and even governors. Latching on to a conspiracy theory that originated in the far-right fringes of the internet, they warned that the training exercise was in fact part of a plot by President Obama to invade Texas, impose martial law and abolish civil liberties. 

At one point, one-third of Republican voters and half of all Tea Party supporters feared that the federal government was “trying to take over Texas,” with another 28 percent of GOP voters saying that they were not sure whether or not the plot existed. 

Outlets such as WorldNetDaily and InfoWars, far-right sites that also regularly host Republican politicians, led the way in spreading the conspiracy theories. But the theories soon spread beyond the far-right, and suddenly people had to debate whether the government would use secret tunnels, closed Walmart stores and cattle cars as part of an increasingly fantastical plot to eviscerate American freedom. 

Unsurprisingly, the people who were pushing conspiracy theories about the military training exercise fell silent when it became clear that none of the scenarios they predicted had materialized. Jade Helm 15 proceeded as planned over the summer officially ended today without a federal takeover of Texas.

Well that's a little unsatisfying.

After all there was  SO much hype about all of this.

The wing nuts created a Counter Jade Helm organization, Governor Abbott signed a law creating a Fort Knox just for Texans so that those dirty federal agents could not get their hands on their money, and some "patriots" were even plotting to kill US soldiers in response to paranoia about the establishment of martial law.

And all of that was for what? Nothing?

I mean didn't we at least take Ted Cruz and Governor Abbott as political prisoners?

No?

Gee one would almost think that these people were just incredibly paranoid and had panicked over nothing.

Nah!

FBI arrests three men in North Carolina who were preparing to kill soldiers participating in the Jade Helm 15 exercises.

Anti-‘Jade Helm 15′ nuts arrested in North Carolina after hoarding weapons and making bombs http://t.co/4PWxPh0B1H pic.twitter.com/jwQIcsv9Sp

— R Joseph (@rjoseph7777) August 5, 2015

Courtesy of RT:  

Federal officials say three men arrested in North Carolina were stockpiling weapons for a murderous plot against US soldiers. According to the FBI, the trio believed a Special Forces exercise dubbed Jade Helm 15 was a pretext for imposing martial law. 

FBI documents unsealed Monday say the three residents of Gaston County bought guns and ammunition and attempted to build explosive devices, all with intent of killing US soldiers they believed were coming to establish martial law. The three were identified as Walter Litteral, 50, Christopher Barker, 41, and Christopher Campbell, 30. 

The FBI claims Litteral planned to make explosive devices out of tennis balls covered in nails and coffee cans filled with ball bearings. He also purchased ammunition for a 338 caliber rifle, hand-held radios, Kevlar helmets, body armor and face masks, which the authorities say were to be used in “armed resistance to the feared military occupation,” according to the AP. 

Most of the information in the indictment comes from an FBI informant, who opened a military surplus store in Belmont, not far from Campbell’s tattoo parlor, in January. The informant said Campbell approached him with “anti-government” views and introduced him to Litteral. 

According to court documents, the two men told the informant that they believed “that the federal government intended to use the armed forces to impose martial law in the United States, which they and others would resist with violent force.”

Wait, the FBI informant opened a "military surplus store" and then gathered evidence against these guys?

Now why does THAT sound so familiar?

Drop Zone employee, Sally Heath, and Bill Fulton.

Now I have no evidence that Fulton was involved in this investigation, and of course if I did I would deny it, but you have to admit that this is eerily similar to how Fulton assisted the FBI in the Schaeffer Cox domestic terrorism case.

In this case however it would seem that the FBI might have jumped the gun.

After all if these guys were buying weapons to protect themselves from a military imposed martial law that was never coming, then did they actually represent a danger?

But then again perhaps just the fact that they were willing to kill soldiers, and were arming themselves for that eventuality, might have been reason enough to get them locked up.

Texans still so paranoid about the Jade Helm 15 military operations that they have created a "Counter Jade Helm" to monitor them. No I am NOT kidding.

Courtesy of Houston Chronicle:

When the troops land in Texas for Operation Jade Helm next week, someone will be waiting for them. 

Hundreds of people have organized a "Counter Jade Helm" surveillance operation across the Southwestern states and in an effort to keep an eye on the contentious military drill that's sparked many suspicious of Uncle Sam's intentions. 

Eric Johnston, a 51-year-old retired firefighter and sheriff's deputy who lives in Kerrville, is a surveillance team leader in Texas. He'll coordinate three groups of volunteers, about 20 folks in total, who hope to monitor the SEALs, Green Berets and Air Force Special Ops in Bastrop, Big Spring and Junction when Jade Helm kicks off on July 15. With media prohibited at the drills, the volunteers could be a main source of information for the highly-anticipated seven-state exercise. 

But locations more precise than the towns around which troops will drill remain unknown. For the citizens' surveillance operation, therein lies the first challenge. 

"If a team member sees two Humvees full of soldiers driving through town, they're going to follow them," Johnston said. "And they're going to radio back their ultimate location."

Why do I have visions of these yahoos radioing back to command central with updates like "Army unit stopping to gas up and buy girlie magazines," and "Suspicious convoy currently located in the Piggly Wiggly parking lot?"

Here is more from the Guardian:

Johnston, a retired firefighter and police officer in Arizona who now lives in the Texas hill country, spoke in measured, calm tones and said he and his colleagues were focused on basic transparency, not outrageous conspiracy. 

“We are not far-wing, ‘Oh God, arm ourselves, get in camouflage, block the streets,’” he said. “We’re doing more of a neighbourhood watch kind of thing. 

“We are going to find a central location and set up an area and just cruise the streets, drive up and down the highway through Bastrop … most of us are legal concealed-carry folks, but we’re not going to be running up and down the street with automatic rifles.” 

Now while this guy sounds fairly reasonable, he follows all of this up with the following statement:  

If something mysterious is afoot, Johnston, said, he wants to get to the bottom of it. 

“Two and two doesn’t add up,” he said.

Yeah it does. It's four.  Isn't it four in Texas?

So here's my question. Do you have to prove you're a paranoid schizophrenic to move to Texas, or is that just ultimately what you become after living there for awhile?

Texas decides to establish their own Fort Knox, because you know screw the federal government!

Courtesy of TPM:  

And the new depository will not just be a well-guarded warehouse for that bullion. The law Abbott signed calls for the creation of an electronic payments system that will allow gold, silver, platinum, palladium, and rhodium depositors to write checks against their accounts, making the depository into a bank – one that will create a metal-backed money supply intended to challenge the paper currency issued by the Federal Reserve - or "Yankee dollars" as one of the law's top supporters calls them. And in case the Fed or Obama wants to confiscate Texas's gold, nice try Fed and Obama! In keeping with this suspicion of the Fed and Washington, the new law also explicitly declares that no “governmental or quasi-governmental authority other than an authority of [Texas]” will be allowed to confiscate or freeze an account inside the depository. Gold that’s entrusted to Texas will stay in Texas. 

The depository law is the brainchild of a second-term state representative in the Texas legislature named Giovanni Capriglione, a 42-year-old Republican from Southlake, just northwest of Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. A private equity manager with an MBA, Capriglione was elected in 2012 after beating an seven-term incumbent with the backing of Tea Party activists. He told the Star-Telegram that when he first announced his interest in establishing a depository in Texas in 2013, he “got so many emails and phone calls from people literally all over the world who said they want to store their gold … in a Texas depository. People have this image of Texas as big and powerful … so for a lot of people, this is exactly where they would want to go with their gold.” 

The only thing big and powerful in Texas are the egos. 

I don't know about everybody else, but my very first thought on reading this is that Texas is getting ready to secede, because a state run gold depository would be essential to making that happen.

The place is already overrun with sovereign citizens who are constantly freaking out about the federal government, as was demonstrated by their crazed response to military maneuvers in their state, and some have even gone so far as to start printing their own money.

Personally I hope that they ARE preparing to secede from United States of America. Having them leave would significantly raise the IQ level in Washington since one of their Senators is freaking Ted Cruz, and they count among their Representatives the like of Blake Farenthold, Pete Sessions, and Louis Gohmert.

I just have to wonder how safe Texans will feel once other countries learn that Texas has their own gold reserves and are no longer protected by the United States military?

Well this ought to cause some heads to explode.

Oh well, it made me laugh.

Good point.

Bill Maher wonders how the Republicans made Rand Paul their bitch, and claims that "crazy is their constituency."

Maher starts off lamenting the fact that he used to think that Rand Paul was the kind of Republican he might have been able to vote for (Spoiler alert: He wasn't.), before turning his sites on the freakout in Texas over Jade Helm 15.

Courtesy of Raw Story:

Maher also chided Paul for saying he would “look into” Jade Helm 15, the military training exercises that sent Texas conservatives — and Gov. Greg Abbott — into an uproar out of fear US troops were trying to impose martial law on their state. 

Texas Republicans had no need to worry anybody was “messing” with them, Maher said — people are already happy to leave them alone. 

“You’ve outlawed abortion, you’ve gutted government regulation, you’re armed to the teeth,” he said. “You’re the white Somalia.”

Maher followed up by telling Texas to "Stop worrying about getting sucked into the New World Order, you're barely in the old world order. And the only reason we conduct military exercises in your area is there's no chance of accidentally damaging anything anybody cares about."

Boy I bet Florida is pissed off lately with Texas stealing all of attention for THEIR crazy people.

Looks like it time for them to do a little alligator wrestling in the Florida Capitol, beat somebody to death with one of those plastic pink flamingos, or catch a partially clothed charter school principle in marijuana smoke filled car with a student.

Wow Florida, that was fast.

Rep. Louie Gohmert becomes the latest to buy into the "Obama is imposing martial law on Texas" conspiracy. Wait, he's just now buying in?

Courtesy of Policy Mic:  

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) is the latest Republican to express concern that a planned U.S. military exercise in the Southwest known as "Jade Helm 15" may be a ploy for imposing martial law on Texas. 

"This military practice has some concerned that the U.S. Army is preparing for modern-day martial law. Certainly I can understand these concerns," Gohmert said in a statement on the exercises. "When leaders within the current administration believe that major threats to the country include those who support the Constitution, are military veterans or even 'cling to guns or religion,' patriotic Americans have reason to be concerned." 

Gohmert, who has served in the Army and has participated in military exercises, explained that he understands why a training exercise in civilian territory would be a routine occurrence and useful for the military. But he claims that a map depicting the operation's parameters that labels Texas "hostile" territory has stoked his deeper fears that the president could be using the operation as cover for something more sinister.

Wait, there's a map?

 Oh hey, there is a map.

Oh I see, they marked Texas as "hostile."

Well that certainly seems reasonable to me.

Except I don't think it means "hostile" to the military in the same way it means "hostile" to me.

According to the Washington Post, which confirmed the map's legitimacy with Army sources, the map was likely made for local authorities, and the depiction of a domestic region as hostile territory is a regular feature of training exercises which — by definition — are simulating combat with an enemy. 

Oh I see, so the areas marked in red are only pretending to be hostile for the military maneuvers just like has been done for decades. And Louie Gohmert, who was in the military, should know that.

But he either doesn't, or is pretending he doesn't, in order to fit in with the crazy people who are convinced that Obama is going to round them all up and put them in FEMA camps.

My only question is what took Gohmert so long to chime in on this?

After all the Louie Gohmert I know, and think should be institutionalized, would have been taking point on this conspiracy theory, not following up in the rear.

You know if I were a barely coherent moron in Gohmert's district I would be sorely disappointed in the kind of support I was receiving from my Congressman.