Pete Santilli made an appearance at the Save America Revival Tour’s stop in Ohio to share his incredible story of persecution by the corrupt FBI and DOJ and how he was deplorable before it even became a term.
Santilli got a warm introduction as one of the ‘founding fathers of the movement’ by the event organizers who said: ” So there’s a guy who’s been around, I kind of consider him a little bit of a Rush Limbaugh of Ohio,” when introducing him.
Santilli talked about how he started broadcasting and building an audience of patriots, many of who have stayed with him throughout the years he has been on the air because of his unique perspective and his experiences while he was persecuted by the ‘deep state’ long before anyone else.
“The Devil comes to attack you and he used our own government against this guy, but we’re going to make it right. And thank you so much for all that you do. Thank you,” the organizer said as she handed the mic over to Santilli to tell his inspirational story.
Santilli told the event attendees, “being persecuted as Christians is something we expect, isn’t it, right? I’m here to tell you my story of how I got here to this place. In 2013 there was a truckers ride for the Constitution. That was a huge event that essentially brought me around 67 million people listening to my coverage because nobody else was covering the event. The truckers were actually blocked and scared away from going to DC as was planned to do a blockade. I said we wanted to world’s largest traffic jam in DC shut down Commerce.
That was a neat little concept that didn’t go very well; they stopped it but guess what? We shifted gears.
Do you remember when Barack Obama was evacuated from the White House because the veterans went to the World War Two Memorial and took down those barricades? They blocked the truckers and the veterans went to the war memorial and they took those barricades down and Barack Obama was evacuated.
Okay, so that’s my claim to fame and I made everybody really mad, okay? They put investigative journalists behind bars for 619 days and boy do I feel for the January 6 defendants. Because I know exactly how they feel right now.
These are some of our nation’s greatest Patriots, not because of what happened on January 6 but because of what they’re doing right now. They want to give it to the Deep State I’ve spoken to them.
And, you know, they knew about my situation. I want to be on this side of the podium, holding those that are at the government podium accountable. All right. There’s a longer story to what I’m about to tell you. I’m going to tell you how it happens. You guys want to hear it? I’m such a belligerent United States Marine….”
Josh Bernstein, the host of Josh Bernstein Uncensored talks, appeared on the Pete Santilli show this week, with Pete Santilli.
What he had to say about his ideas about the use of Mosquitoes to force vaccinate an unwilling population will frighten many people. Here is his scary story:
“This mosquito bite syringe is brought to you by The Gates Foundation. Look, there are 12.7 billion doses of the vaccine that have given been given out worldwide. We have 4.95 billion World citizens,so that is 63 percent of the entire world’s population who has already been vaccinated.
Now, if you look at the Georgia Guidestones, they have thankfully been destroyed. They had a goal of 500 million for the world’s population, so there are 2.8 billion left. It’s all those people that were vaccinated and again, I don’t wish this on them and I hope to God it doesn’t happen, but if they were all to perish because of these vaccines, we would be back to 1957 level for the population in the world, which is 2.8 billion.
How on Earth then if they have a total 100% Alliance rate for vaccinations? Are they going to vaccinate the rest of that 2.8 billion?
Dr. Bryan Ardis the CEO of Ardis Labs appeared on the Pete Santilli show recently and talked about a shocking set of details that explain what hospitals have been doing.
“It is wonderful to have done so many interviews,so many presentations, so many Senator testimonies that are provided with other medical professionals against these Hospital protocols to finally see groups of attorneys around the country and sheriffs and families coming together. They are finally taking action against these corrupt institutions that have taken advantage of incentives from our government.
I don’t know if you saw this but on money.com, they actually published this article and they go into the numbers. . The actual payouts in total can exceed over 400,000 dollars per patient. The average time of death was nine days the Royal Treatment protocol is only allowed for a maximum 10 days, so imagine my shock to find out. That nine is the average day of death for all these people after 10 days of drugging and poisoning, an individual to death and accumulating over almost half a million dollars per person,” Ardis told Santilli.
September 30, 2022 at 05:25PM Pelosi Says Illegal Aliens Need to Stay in Florida to “Pick the Crops Down Here” (VIDEO)
Pelosi: “We have a shortage of workers in our country. In Florida, some of the farmers and the growers are saying ‘why are you shipping these immigrants up North? We need them to pick the crops down here.’” pic.twitter.com/uCXgz0AXSB
The racist white limousine liberals on Martha’s Vineyard freaked out and immediately deported the illegals.
Pelosi said the illegals need to stay in Florida so they can pick fruit.
“We have a shortage of workers in our country. In Florida, some of the farmers and the growers are saying ‘why are you shipping these immigrants up North? We need them to pick the crops down here.’” Pelosi said.
Yikes.
Imagine the headlines if Trump or any Republican said something like this.
Lance Migliaccio, the host of The Big Mig, appeared on Pete Santilli Show recently and talked about a number of his investigations, especially shocking was what Mig discovered was going on in Washington DC- NOTHING.
Or at least it looks like nothing because there is a lack of people in the area for some reason. Watch as Mig and Santilli talk about it.
Here is what they said:
“It’s crazy. These people are down there at lunchtime, taking videos down there at this building, and it is empty. Watch this. This was taken at lunchtime there is a timestamp,and there should be a lot of people who are working in Washington, DC in that square block area, right?
I mean, I’ve been to DC and it’s like this years ago, but it was bustling, especially at lunchtime. It looks like it’s crazy, isn’t it? No, no cars, hustling to work on a Monday. There’s nobody- that’s funny,” Santilli said.
Mig jumped in: “Pete. This has been going on for months and months.”
Santilli introduced footage that Mig had brought in from citizen journalists, showing that at lunchtime on a weekday, there were not many people walking around or cars moving, which was very odd.
You have to see it to really understand the situation and how strange it is to see empty streets in the nation’s capital with so much going on in the world.
The two then talked about interesting investigations, including Dennis Montgomery’s claims about elections and other things that Mig was reporting about on his site.
Ben Bergquam, the host of Law and Border on Real America’s Voice, appeared on The Pete Santilli show recently to talk about his exclusive investigations on the Southern Border and what he has learned being out at protests and dealing with the left.
“The money the Mexican drug cartels are making from human trafficking is huge. It’s about half of the Cartel’s income. They’re making billions of dollars, still on drug trafficking. The cartel are overwhelming border patrol at these processing centers all across the US with fake asylum seekers, so they can run their drugs through places like Arivaca, Arizona. Then basically, anywhere outside of where that processing is happening of these hundreds and thousands of illegal, fake asylum seekers we these patterns,” Bergquam said.
More from his interview:
On top of that, we see up to 100,000 deaths last year from fentanyl. It’s the number one killer of people aged 18 to 45. It is a weapon of mass destruction with precursors originally made in China,
Now they’re actually making those precursors in Mexico, but it’s a combination of Mexican drug cartels working with the Chinese transnational syndicates to destroy America from within.
China has separate intentions and Separate interests. They just want to see America fall. The cartels just want to make money. And so they have this Unholy Alliance.
And there is another alliance now between Hamas and terrorist organizations and the cartels to bring their terrorists through. So it’s a combination of destroying America on multiple fronts. We are at War right now, we’re just losing the war badly. We pretend like we’re not, but America is at War; we’re just losing.
WATCH more from Ben Bergquam, the founder of Frontline America, talk about his exclusive reporting:
The wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on Sept. 29 met with the House of Representatives panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol.
Ginni Thomas, who was in communication after the 2020 election with then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and a lawyer who advocated for delaying the electoral count, appeared on Capitol Hill in Washington to answer questions from the panel after months of negotiations.
Thomas did not answer questions from reporters, but said she was looking forward to meeting with the panel.
Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.), a member of the panel, said that members wanted to ask Thomas about her discussions with Meadows and the lawyer, John Eastman.
“John Eastman is the same individual who came up with this idea and scheme that a federal judge has ruled was likely illegal,” Aguilar told reporters, referring to an opinion entered in a civil case against Eastman.
Eastman has said that Vice President Mike Pence had the authority under the 12th Amendment to reject electoral slates, but Pence announced the morning of the electoral certification that he believed he did not.
Thomas answered questions behind closed doors. The panel has not released any transcripts from its more than 1,000 interviews, though it has indicated it will release a report and has made public snippets of some of the conversations.
Chairman
Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chairman of the Jan. 6 panel, told reporters that Thomas told members during the meeting that she thought that the 2020 election was stolen. Thomas also answered some questions.
“Earlier today, Ginni Thomas participated in a voluntary interview with the J6 Committee. She was happy to cooperate with the Committee to clear up the misconceptions about her activities surrounding the 2020 elections,” a lawyer for Thomas told news outlets in a statement. “She answered all the Committee’s questions.”
Thomas was concerned about “fraud and irregularities” in the election and informed the committee that her only involvement was working to ensure reports of fraud and irregularities were investigated.
The meeting came one day after what was scheduled to be the panel’s final public hearing. It was postponed due to Hurricane Ian hitting Florida. Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.), a member of the panel, represents a portion of the state.
Thompson said he did not yet have a date for the rescheduled hearing, but that it would take place before the Nov. 8 midterm elections.
The Jan. 6 panel is likely to be dissolved if Republicans seize control of the House in the midterms. Political forecasters say the GOP would flip the lower chamber, though many are uncertain as to which party will end up with a majority in the Senate.
September 29, 2022 at 05:19PM ‘Looks Like Atom Bomb Dropped’: Hurricane Ian Levels Neighborhoods In Southwest Florida
Update (1342ET):
One resident told Tampa Bay Times, “it looks like somebody took an atom bomb and dropped it,” referring to the widespread damage across Southwest Florida following the devastating hurricane that made landfall about 24 hours ago near Fort Myers as a Cat. 4 storm.
The footage is absolutely shocking.
* * *
Update (1000ET):
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis told reporters Hurricane Tropical Storm Ian had produced a “500-year flood event” across Florida.
* * *
Hurricane Ian was downgraded to a tropical storm early Thursday morning as it traversed northeastward across central Florida, dumping torrential rain while still packing strong winds across a large swath of the state.
The former Category 4 hurricane made landfall Wednesday afternoon west of Fort Myers near Cayo Costa. Ian unleashed widespread life-threatening storm surge flooding across the region.
About 2.6 million homes and businesses are without power, according to PowerOutage.us. The most significant number of outages are based in the southwest Florida region, where the hurricane made landfall.
Shocking footage yesterday revealed the surge sent a wall of water roaring inland that was as high as some homes. Streets were instantly transformed into rivers. We pointed out last night that total storm damage could be upwards of $70 billion.
Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno told ABC’s Good Morning America that he believes “fatalities are in the hundreds” after Ian devastated his county, which includes Fort Myers, Cape Coral, and Bonita Springs, areas that experienced extreme storm surges yesterday and into the overnight.
Now Ian is expected to enter the Atlantic Ocean later today and make landfall (again) along the South Carolina coast late Friday.
• To see the 2021 groups broken down by state click here.
Top takeaways
The Intelligence Project identified 488 extreme antigovernment groups that were active in 2021, down from 566 in 2020. Of these groups, 92 were militias, 75 sovereign citizen, three constitutional sheriff, and 52 conspiracy propagandist groups. The number of antigovernment groups peaked in the 2010s and has declined since, but the current decrease in organized group numbers is not reflective of a lack of broad support or activity. In 2021, the conspiratorial and permanently dubious view of government was pervasive, as evidence by the movement’s popularity on such issues as COVID-19 regulations, local school curriculum, the “Big Lie” voter fraud, border security and various technological advances such as 5G cell service. Antigovernment imagery, such as the Gadsden flag and the Three Percenter logo, was commonly displayed by adherents across the country. Antigovernment groups were linked up with other hard-right groups in 2021, as they often targeted the same marginalized communities and engaged in actual or threats of political violence.
The Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and attempt to stop the democratic transfer of power through the formalized counting of electoral votes was the most public moment for the antigovernment movement since the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. Of the over 700 people charged with offenses ranging from trespassing to seditious conspiracy for the actions on Jan. 6, at least 25 were members of identified antigovernment organizations.
Faced with greater scrutiny and deplatforming, antigovernment groups reorganized and were dispersed in communities focused on localized activities – a mainstay tactic of the antigovernment movement. Some local chapters of national organizations disbanded or unaffiliated, including chapters of Oath Keepers, the American Patriots Three Percent, III% United Patriots, the Three Percenters/III%ers, and the State of Jefferson Formation.
Ammon Bundy’s People’s Rights activists held a variety of small-scale demonstrations for individual grievances and organized a series of stunts disobeying COVID-19 public health measures, one resulting in Bundy’s arrest, throughout 2021.
In the Southwest, militias and other extremists set up camps in the desert engaging in vigilante activities including harassing migrants and humanitarian aid groups and coordinating with border patrol agents.
Conspiracy propagandists, including the John Birch Society, found a niche audience with COVID-19 vaccine skeptics, using existing antigovernment mistrust and a historical relationship with the natural-health sector to push the conspiracies around population and government control. Likewise, constitutional sheriff organizations promoted COVID-19 conspiracy theories and refused to enforce health guidelines enacted by their lawmakers. Some of these sheriffs teamed up at events alongside QAnon adherents, antisemites and sovereign citizens.
The coalescing of QAnon adherents with sovereign citizens, constitutional sheriffs and militia members, along with conspiracy minded anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers, has produced an environment where groups can openly recruit and market their ideas to each other and the general public.
Key moments
John Birch Society (JBS) founded, 1958: The organization is dedicated to opposing communism.
Ruby Ridge Standoff, August 1992: An 11-day standoff with the Weaver family and law enforcement occurred in Boundary County, Idaho. United States Marshals moved to arrest Randy Weaver under a warrant, Weaver refused and a standoff insured. Weaver’s son and wife, and a Deputy U.S. Marshall were all killed.
Oklahoma City Bombing, April 19, 1995: Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols bomb the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The bombing killed at least 168 people and injured at least 680 additional individuals.
Conspiracy website WorldNetDaily (WND) is founded in 1997.
Printz v. U.S., June 27, 1997: The U.S. Supreme Court sides with Sheriff Mack and Ravalli County Sheriff/Coroner Jay Printz in their case against a provision of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act.
Infowars founded, 1999: Infowars is founded, and with antigovernment conspiracy theorist and supplement salesman Alex Jones it goes on to craft and nurture the conspiracy theories that animate the antigovernment movement.
Cliven Bundy’s Battle at Bunkerville, July 10, 2014: The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department engaged in a four-day standoff against Cliven Bundy and his antigovernment followers over unpaid cattle grazing fees. The standoff ended when the BLM withdrew to avoid a violent clash with antigovernment supporters.
Malheur National Wildlife Refuge Occupation, Jan. 2, 2016: Antigovernment adherents, including Ammon Bundy, and militia members descended onto the Malheur National wildlife refuge for a 41-day standoff with law enforcement in an attempt to get the Federal Government to hand over public lands to states.
Arivaca murders, May 30, 2009: Shawna Forde, leader of the militant group Minutemen American Defense (MAD), coordinated an attempted home invasion turned double homicide when members of the group killed Raul Flores and his 9-year-old daughter Brisenia. Forde and one other member were sentenced to death while a third member was sentenced to life in prison for his role in the killings.
The Virginia Citizens Defense League (VCDL) Rally in Richmond, January 2020: The event brought together extreme antigovernment militia groups alongside other Second Amendment absolutists. Joining nearly 400 localities in 20 states, 120 localities in Virginia declared themselves “Second Amendment sanctuaries.”
Rally hosted in part by American Patriot Council’s Ryan Kelley in Michigan’s capitol, April 30, 2020: Attendees stormed the statehouse, many of them armed. Brothers William and Michael Null, members of the Wolverine Watchmen militia, were there.
Shooting of Jacob Blake by a police officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin, August 2020: Black Lives Matter protests occur throughout the state. Militias came out to counter them. Kyle Rittenhouse is accused of shooting three people, killing two. He received an outpouring of support from the far right.
Michigan Kidnapping Plot, Oct. 8, 2020: Members of the Wolverine Watchmen, along with members of the Michigan Militia, were arrested by the FBI and Michigan State Police after plotting to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
Jan. 6 Insurrection, Jan. 6, 2021: Violent domestic extremists, including antigovernment militias such as the Oath Keepers, stormed the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., in an attempt to stop the certification of the results from the 2020 general election. Members of the group face multiple federal charges. At least five people died in connection with the attack. Among those arrested were members of the Proud Boys, the Three Percenter movement and the Oath Keepers. Attacks by antigovernment militia groups also took place at state Capitol buildings in Arizona, California, Colorado, Kansas, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
Red Pill Festivals in Montana and South Dakota, June and July 2021: Conspiracy theorists and lawmakers gather for regional events. Organizations represented include John Birch Society, Redoubt News, Connecting the Dots, and Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers. Speakers include Alex Newman, Caleb Collier, Bill Jasper, Matt Shea, Idaho Rep. Heather Scott, Joey Gibson, John Jacob Schmidt, G. Edward Griffin, Dan Happel and Richard Mack.
Throughout summer 2021, Ammon Bundy’s People’s Rights Network threatens a standoff in Klamath Falls in Dan Nielsen and Grant Knoll protest water rights with The Klamath Tribes (Klamath-Modoc-Yahooskin).
Arise USA: Faith, Family, Freedom, May-Sept. 2021: Arise USA claims they made an 85-stop tour promoting the “Big Lie,” QAnon, COVID-19 conspiracies, 9/11 antisemitic conspiracies, and County Supremacy. The tour is organized by Robert David Steele who died from COVID-19 in fall 2021. Speakers included Richard Mackand Kevin Jenkins. Steele was a former CIA agent, 2016 Libertarian candidate for president, and holocaust denier.
Patriot Network Summit, July 30-Aug. 1, 2021: In Dugspur, Virginia,John Pierce, attorney for Jan. 6 Defendantsjoins Jeanette Finicum and health conspiracy theorists for an event focused on the Malheur standoff, while introducing the additional martyrdom of the Jan. 6 arrestees and opposition to national COVID-19 health efforts.
ReAwaken America Health and Freedom Tour, July-Oct. 2021: QAnon conspiracy theorists gather with other antigovernment activists in Michigan, Florida, Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado and California. Speakers include Clay Clark, Mike Flynn, Roger Stone, Gene Hoe, Richard Mack, (Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association), Joe Oltmann, (FEC United) and Artur Pawlowski (Canadian Black Robe Regiment pastor).
Sanctuary Church’s Rod of Iron Freedom Festival, October 2021: Antigovernment and hard-right leaders came together in Greeley, Pennsylvania,to promote guns and conspiracies. Speakers included Steve Bannon, Joey Gibson, Rep. Rick Saccone, and Dan Fisher and Gary Haskell of the “Black Robed Regiment.”
For God & Country Patriot Double Down 2021, October 2021: In Las Vegas Nevada antigovernment activists hold a rally promoting QAnon and other conspiracies. Speakers include Amy and John Sabal, Mike Flynn, Ron Watkins, Gene Ho, Jordan Sather, Zak Paine, Arizona state Sen. Wendy Rogers, Arizona state Sen. Mark Finchem and former Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, Sheriff David Clarke.
What’s ahead
The antigovernment movement will look to expand upon the broad popularity of foundational ideas related to guns, government distrust and conspiracy theories. They will continue to capitalize on the current issues related to public health guidance, local school curriculum and practices, control of natural resources, claims of election fraud, immigration and national security. They will particularly seek to further mainstream their ideas and operationalize their power by running for office in large numbers from the local to federal level.
The movement will also seek to mitigate the damage to their brand in the wake of the Jan. 6 insurrection. Particularly, movement leaders will want to shift the media narrative and deflect legal, law-enforcement and public scrutiny. If historical trends are a guide, the movement could also see growth in response to federal government expansion and policy shifts under Biden.
Background
Antigovernment groups are part of the antidemocratic hard-right movement. They believe the federal government is tyrannical and they traffic in conspiracy theories about an illegitimate government of leftist elites seeking a “New World Order.” Adherents and critics have in the past referred to this movement as the “Patriot” movement.
A particularly prominent conspiracy in the antigovernment movement – and one conspiracy propagandist groups often push – involves an effort to create a New World Order through a One World Government, often facilitated by the United Nations in order to institute communism/socialism and take away private property rights. Another conspiracy alleges that there are plans to merge the United States, Canada and Mexico into a single country. Other notable conspiracies include the idea that the federal government is secretly planning to round up citizens and place them in concentration camps run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Fears of impending gun control or weapons confiscations, either by the government or international agencies, also run rampant in antigovernment circles.
These conspiracy theories identify grievances, both real and imagined, and demonize groups they deem responsible for them. Conspiracy propagandists offer simple answers to complex problems, but often stop short of offering a specific solution to the threats, instead hinting at actions to be taken by movement members while being careful to maintain plausible deniability. Groups including The John Birch Society, WorldNetDaily (WND) and InfoWars are crucial to the antigovernment extremist movement in that they help craft and nurture the very conspiracy theories that animate the movement’s activists.
The antigovernment movement has experienced waves of popularity, including the 1990s. In 1996, the year after the Oklahoma City bombing, 858 groups were documented active in the U.S. Timothy McVeigh, one of the Oklahoma City bombers, was motivated by extreme antigovernment beliefs then circulating in the militia movement. He was also inspired by the racist novel The Turner Diaries, modeling his attack on a scene from the book. The antigovernment movement of the 1990s, typified by the proliferation of militias, was fueled by a string of incidents, including the 1992 Ruby Ridge standoff, the 1993 Branch Davidian Waco compound siege and the 1996 Montana Freemen standoff. Other factors included the struggling economy in the early 1990s, particularly in Western states, and the election of President Bill Clinton, who was characterized by antigovernment activists as a liberal intent on seizing their weapons. Similarly, the in the last 2000s and 2010s the antigovernment was animated by the Tea Party movement, with both national and local groups mobilizing resentment around the economic challenges of the great recession and in opposition to the presidency of Barack Obama.
The militia movement engages in paramilitary training aimed at protecting citizens from this feared impending government crackdown. Militia groups often engage in firearm and field training, maintain an internal hierarchical command structure, are obsessed with guns and the Second Amendment, and are often opposed to immigration. Notable groups have included the Wolverine Watchman, Ohio Defense Force; Hutaree Militia, Oath Keepers, Minutemen American Defense, Militia of Montana and various Three Percenter-affiliated groups. The Wolverine Watchman were charged in connection to the 2020 plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Both Oath Keepers and Three Percenter group members have been arrested for charges relating to the Jan. 6 insurrection. Three Percenter groups adhere to the dubious historical claim that only 3% of American colonists fought against the British during the War of Independence.
The Oath Keepers were founded in 2009 by Elmer Stewart Rhodes, a veteran army paratrooper, law school graduate and former Ron Paul congressional staffer. Like some antigovernment groups and activists such as Jack McLamb’s Police Against the New World Order, Oath Keepers primarily recruits current and former law enforcement, military and first-responder personnel, though they also accept civilians. Unlike many other militia groups that are local, geographically-based groups, Oath Keepers has a centralized hierarchical leadership and tiered structure at national, state and local levels.
A small but influential and foundational segment of the antigovernment movement is the constitutional sheriff movement. These groups adhere to the concept of county supremacy and the idea that the county sheriff as the ultimate law enforcement authority in the United States. This idea was pioneered in the 1970s and described as Posse Comitatus. The Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association is the largest and oldest national constitutional sheriff organization. The second tenet of county supremacy centers on the idea that county government should have control of all the land within its borders, taking this power away from the state and federal government. Antigovernment groups who focus on this tenet are often active in the anti-public lands movement popular in the Western U.S., also known as the Sagebrush Rebellion or Wise Use movement in previous decades.
Sovereign citizens, a subset of the antigovernment movement, believe that they, not judges, juries, law enforcement or elected officials, get to decide which laws to obey and which to ignore, and they think they shouldn’t have to pay taxes. Sovereign citizen ideology is highly conspiratorial, and they are best known for clogging up the courts with indecipherable filings and liens targeting public officials. Sovereign citizens are frequently engaged in criminal activity and have been violent when confronted, particularly against government officials such as police officers. Some concerning groups are part of a subset of sovereign citizens termed Moorish sovereign citizens.
The antigovernment movement has also included groups whose focus was on tax protest and survivalism. While groups associated with both segments still exist, their prevalence has diminished in recent years. As the antigovernment movement has changed in the last 50 years, different segments have either grown or shrunk, but the key conspiracies and ideas are always taken up by other antigovernment groups and often reemerge later.
Three Percenters
Percenterism is one of three core components within the antigovernment militia movement, along with the Oath Keepers and traditional militia groups. The reference to 3% stems from the dubious historical claim that only 3% of American colonists fought against the British during the War of Independence.
Oath Keepers
The Oath Keepers, another core component of the militia movement, was founded in 2009 by Elmer Stewart Rhodes, a veteran army paratrooper, Yale Law School graduate and former Ron Paul congressional staffer. It primarily recruits current and former law enforcement, military and first-responder personnel, though it also accepts civilians. Unlike Three Percenterism, Oath Keepers was conceived as an organization with hierarchical leadership at national, state and local levels, one committed to establishing a network of activists it hopes will lay the groundwork for the creation of state militias.
Conspiracy Propagandists
The John Birch Society, World Net Daily and InfoWars are crucial to the antigovernment extremist movement in that they help craft and nurture the very conspiracy theories that animate the movement’s activists, such as Oath Keepers and Three Percenters. These conspiracy theories identify grievances, both real and imagined, and demonize groups they deem responsible for them. Conspiracy propagandists often stop just short of offering a solution to the threats, instead leaving action up to movement members while being careful to maintain plausible deniability. These conspiracy theories generate a sense of urgency in the “Patriot” movement that can lead to criminal activity, including terrorism.
To see the 2021 groups broken down by category, click the links here:
Ian is a Category 4 hurricane packing maximum sustained winds of 155 mph.
Ian’s storm surge has arrived along parts of the southwest Florida coast, including in Naples, Florida, where over 5 feet of storm surge inundation has been measured, more than any other storm at that gauge location in at least 50 years.
Meanwhile, winds blowing offshore produced a blowout tide in Tampa Bay Wednesday morning.
Ian’s eyewall began scraping the coast of southwest Florida Wednesday, including Sanibel Island, prompting a rarely-issued “Extreme Wind Warning” used by the National Weather Service only in situations of the most intense winds in stronger hurricanes.
Winds have recently gusted up to 112 mph at the Naples Grande Beach Resort, 107 mph near Sanibel Island, 100 mph at Redfish Pass on nearby Captiva Island and 79 mph in Punta Gorda. Gusts over 40 mph have been clocked on the Atlantic side, including a 54 mph gust at Cape Canaveral. Street flooding was reported in Stuart, about 100 miles north of Miami.
Winds have gusted from 40 to 80 mph in Key West Tuesday into early Wednesday, where Ian also produced the third highest storm surge in over 100 years.
A tornado watch is in effect for central and southern Florida until 5 p.m. EDT.
