I'm shocked! Shocked! To find that gambling is going on this establishment!
Your winnings, sir.
Well, it appears that someone leaked the membership list for Oath Keepers, and there are a lot of senior police, as well as a significant number of elected officials and members of the military on the list as well.
Rather unsurprisingly, Texas is on top of the list for elected officials and total number of members, New York (mostly upstate?) leads in law enforcement officials, and Virginia leads in the number of active duty military.
Given that Virginia, the home of the Pentagon, is a distant 3rd in active duty
military among the states, this implies that the insurrectionist racist group is almost certainly overrepresented among senior military officials.
Cue Inspector Renault:
Hundreds of elected officials, military members, and law enforcement officers appear on the membership lists of the far-right Oath Keepers militia, according to a new report published Wednesday by the Anti-Defamation League. [The ADL report has a useful interactive map, and numerous reports of people attempting to use their official positions to benefit the radical organization.]
Why it matters: The Oath Keepers have risen to national prominence for their alleged role in the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riot.State of play: The leaked membership list was published by the journalism collective Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoSecrets) in September 2021. The ADL's Center on Extremism went through the 38,000 names on the lists to identify those who held "sensitive positions," the group said in the report.
- The events of Jan. 6 also highlighted fresh concerns about domestic extremism in the military, after several former and current military members were charged for their involvement in the Capitol riot.
Worth noting: "An individual’s inclusion in the Oath Keeper database is not proof that they were or are still an Oath Keeper, that they hold or held all or some of Oath Keeper ideology or viewpoints, or that they ever actively participated in Oath Keeper activities," the ADL's report stated.
- The ADL identified 373 people named on the Oath Keepers membership list who are currently serving in law enforcement agencies across the U.S., including at least 10 chiefs of police and 11 sheriffs.
- The group also identified 117 people currently serving in the military, on top of 11 people serving in the reserves and another 31 who are military contractors or hold civilian positions.
- It said the list included "86 active firefighters (including several fire chiefs), 19 active paramedics, and 31 active emergency technicians appearing in the membership list." The ADL identified 81 people who were holding or running for public office across the country as of Aug. 8. "These individuals run the gamut from local office — mayors, town councilmembers, school board members — to state representatives and senators," the report stated.
(emphasis original)
I'm not sure what to do here.
For elected officials, it's simple, watch them like hawks, and vote them out.
For members of the military and the police force? I'm not sure that they should be fired, but they should be thoroughly investigated, and any sort of security clearances that they possess should be revoked until it can be shown that they are not a security risk. (Clearances work on guilty until proved innocent, as well they should)
1 comments :
I don't know what oaths are involved in joining the Oath Keepers (although I presume that there are some), but they should be examined to see if they conflict with the oaths of office for public officials, the police, and the military.
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