So, remember Operation Jade Helm? The military exercise is a seven-state Army command and control training mission that for months has been a wellspring of intense speculation by fringe right wingers regarding the implementation of martial law in the Lone Star state and conspiracy theories about closed Walmart stores being used as FEMA detention centers.
Some people reportedly buried their guns so government troops couldn't take them away. Others stockpiled ammunition and supplies.
A group called "Counter Jade Helm" helped organize quasi-militias to keep track of troop movements.
...the governor of Texas lent credence to the paranoia by ordering the state's National Guard to monitor a weekslong special operations training exercise
Jade Helm '15 began this past week.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott has since walked back his decision to have the Texas Guard "monitor" (whatever that means) the exercise. Instead, he's now blaming the paranoia on - you guessed it - Obama. I hate linking to a Fox Radio source, but it's a necessary evil in this case. If you get the chance listen to Abbott's interview with Fox Radio host Tom Sullivan.
You wonder where right wing nutters get support for their nutterness?
And so...
Nobody seemed to have seen any of the troops, or the out-of-town conspiracy theorists who vowed to watch their every move.
"We haven't gotten a single call," said Steve Adcock, chief of police in the town of about 7,000. "We thought that there might be something, but nothing's occurred. A lot of the conspiracy stuff is not local people," Adcock told AFP.
"It's making us look really bad."
Ya think? Because y'all let chuckleheads like Peter Lanteri (from Arizona, via the State of New York)
say things like this:
The leader of a volunteer group formed as a “watchdog” over Jade Helm 15 military exercises dismissed 90 percent of Americans as useless and said “he can’t wait to kill thousands of these f*cks.”
...and then Fox Radio's Alan Colmes gives Lanteri a
ten minute rant segment? And you don't respond?
Yeah, Chief Adcock, it's making you look really bad. So's your governor.
Has Donald Trump made a drive-by yet to check up on things, Chief?
Update, 1025 CT: Hat tip to Kossack elmo in the comments: Hilarity ensues. #OMGJadeHelm