Open Carry Texas.  American Freedom Keepers.  Confederate Riders.  Hezbollah.  What do they have in common? Mob tactics, as in the Mafia.  It’s a common technique; to gain support of local communities or to create a “good guy” image, these organizations move into areas where government support is weak or removed, and they fill that void.  Because they support the local community, radicals can shape-shift into magnanimous philanthropists and volunteers to “help” a community. Hezbollah, for example, is a global criminal organization with an operation extending into drugs, guns, and explosives that fuels its terrorist activities; at the same time, Hezbollah also funds schools and hospitals, provides food, and provides security for residents in southern Lebanon.  These “charitable” activities gives the organization some level of cover and support throughout the Middle East, and give its leaders opportunity to assert that they’re not terrorists at all; they’re merely good guys trying to improve the lot of the people of Lebanon.  To those not paying attention, the tactic works.

The same Mafia technique is often tried here in the US.  Open Carry Texas (OCT), the loose organization of radical gun crazies who don’t feel safe unless they’re packing an AR-15 and a Samurai sword at the local Walmart, gained notoriety  in 2013 and 2014 for parading around in public with all manner of firearms.  CJ Grisham, convicted in 2013 for interfering with a police officer while carrying his semi-auto rifle, started the demonstrations to “educate” Texans and to “desensitize” people to the constant presence of screwballs carrying guns everywhere.  He also pushed the idiotic notion of “constitutional” carry, peddling the lie that the Founders intended for anyone to carry any weapon they desired with no oversight, no qualifications, and no common sense.  When the group started demonstrating with guns, normal people reacted as you would expect and called the police terrified that weirdos were out in public with guns in plain sight.  When those people called, OCT members responded by threatening and harassing those callers (especially if they were women), publishing their addresses and telephone numbers.  The victims would be deluged with harassment 24/7.  They even labelled those callers “thugs with jugs”.  Nice.  Well, as you would expect, those terrorist tactics backfired and OCT got some really bad press.  What did ol’ CJ do then?  He decided that OCT was really about helping people, so his minions started collecting contributions of canned goods and school supplies for poor kids.  And again, if you weren’t paying attention, you would be fooled that this group of radical nuts were actually dewy-eyed do gooders.

Which brings us to Hurricane Harvey and the latest case of shape-shifting by assholes.  As we all know, Harvey wrought havoc on the Texas and Louisiana Gulf coast threatening over 100,000 homes and 8 million people.  The damage stretched from Corpus Christi to Beaumont, and tens of thousands of Texans were displaced.  Local government, the feds, and volunteers scrambled to save lives, then rebuild those lives.  The effort continues.

Here’s where things get weird – in Fort Bend County is a small agricultural community outside of Rosharon called Little Cambodia.  It’s populated by Cambodian refuges, has its own Buddhist temple and has been pretty self sufficient.  The area suffered serious flooding, and being outside of larger communities, was left on its own as the effort to respond to the disaster was organized.  American Freedom Keepers, a lose affiliation of gun-toting anti-government screwballs based in Portland, Oregon, saw an opportunity, joined forces with a motorcycle club called Confederate Riders of America and swept in proclaiming that they are in charge of recovery.  FEMA representatives were threatened by this crowd when they arrived trying to assess the situation and promptly left, feeling the area unsafe for their workers.  AFK has now essentially taken over the community.  The Confederate Riders say the community “is not ready for federal help”, whatever that means.  The Fort Bend County sheriff is apparently trying to get handle on the situation.

So, who are these people?  AFK is led by some guy who calls himself Francis Marion, apparently after a Revolutionary War figure who was famous for guerrilla tactics.  AFK is identified with anti-government figures like Cliven Bundy and show up at white supremacist rallies around the country.  They were highly visible last month at the white nationalist “Unite the Right” rally where KKK and
Neo-Nazis clashed with anti-fascism counter protestors.  A counter protester was killed by a white supremacist who plowed into a crowd with his car.  AFK was a named participant in the rally, and they posted pictures of themselves wearing body armor and camo and toting guns at the rally.

The Confederate Riders, whose name doesn’t make it hard to divine their own proclivity, is a motorcycle club that claims it’s not a motorcycle club and has a chapter in area of Little Cambodia.  They wear their black leather vests festooned with white supremacist imagery and Confederate battle flags.  They love to associate with all things Trump and all things anti-Hillary.  At least one of their members is an employee of SSG Group LLC, which is providing support to the Little Cambodia effort.  They love to pose for pictures with guys with guns.

Last week, ABC13 reporter Miya Shay received a tip that white supremacists had taken over Little Cambodia and they were keeping FEMA out.  When she went to investigate, the white supremacists verbally attacked her, calling her a racist for daring to ask about the racists who taken over the community and appointed themselves the sole authority for all relief efforts.  The response of radicals is always the same when unmasked – protest their innocence, grossly overstate shock, and follow that up by vicious lashing out; and that’s exactly what’s happened.  While Shay was in Little Cambodia, she was videoed by one of the racists and a social media campaign, OCT style, was begun by RedElephants, a new alt-right website, run by by Vincent James O’Connor.  RedElephants has rapidly become a key propaganda outlet promoting the alt-right, racists, white supremacists, and gun toting militia types, and has become known for its live streaming of clashes with counter protestors and white supremacists.

The day of Shay’s encounter with AFK and the Confederate Riders in Rosharon, O’Connor posted a video of the encounter with the guy who calls himself Francis Marion excoriating her for daring to ask what was going on.  The video went viral and the result was obvious.  Shay is now being attacked 24/7.  There are attempts to hack into her social media pages and she’s being threatened.  Here ABC13 Facebook comments are filled with nothing but attacks by racists calling her a racist.

Unfortunately, this is often the result when someone unmasks radicals like AFK and Confederate Riders.  Bad guys, who tote guns in public “protecting” white supremacists and those who celebrate the most shameful chapter in our history live in an upside down world where gun toting weirdos are the victims and normal people just asking questions are the bad guys.  AFK suffered backlash for participating in the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville and other racist events.  To counter that bad press, they rush down to a hurricane ravaged area, enlist the Confederate Riders, and run actual aid workers out of an area badly in need of help, declaring themselves in charge.  That’s one of the goofiest traits of these kinds of groups – they just decide they’re going to “protect” a certain group of people (like the racists in Charlottesville) and self-appoint themselves as in charge, ignoring and even opposing those actually in authority.  In this case, armed racists are trying to recast themselves as selfless do gooders.  After all, how can they be racists when they’re helping Asian people?  Oh, and please ignore that AR-15 standing in the corner.

The result is always the same – these militia style folks get in the way; they confuse things; they slow down response; oh, and they scare the shit out of normal people.  Then, they declare victory, post it on Facebook, then run off to the next white supremacist event where they can get more attention for themselves by declaring “free speech”.

We’ll continue following this story.  Hopefully the sheriff will be able to restore order and get the residents actual help.

After Cheeto Jesus’ inauguration, he announced with great fanfare two councils of CEOs all designed to Make America Great Again, whatever that means.  The two councils, the Manufacturing Council and the Strategy & Policy Forum, were supposedly organized to help shape policy to increase business and generate jobs for American workers.  In reality, though, they were simply figurehead in nature, designed to reward CEOs for supporting Trump.  In fact, to my knowledge the councils never actually met outside of the initial photo ops, and were just used to raise the profiles of its members.

All that puffery came crashing down the last few days after Trump’s catastrophic response to the violence in Charlottesville, defending neo-Nazis and racist white supremacists and attacking the media for simply asking questions.  In the face of this disaster, CEOs began bailing from the Manufacturing Council. Today, the Strategy & Policy Forum met in a conference call, and in the face of a crowd of CEOs ready to resign, they disbanded.  Later, through Twitler, Trump also disbanded the Manufacturing Council.  I guess he decided that the defections were simply too glaring to gloss over.

This development is not insignificant.  Think about it – Trump rode to the WH on the backs of bigots and the ignorant; but worse, he also rode on the shoulders of business executives who were so self interested in stuffing their wallets even more full that they allowed themselves to be used to elect a depraved carnival barker.  These very same executives are now fleeing like rats off a sinking ship.

Yes, he actually said it.  In a combative appearance before the press in Cheeto Tower, Trump blew a head gasket and said some REALLY inflammatory and false things.  He got so heated up that I thought his combover was going to self combust.  A few gems:

“You had a group on one side and you had a group on the other and they came at each other with clubs and it was vicious and it was horrible and it was a horrible thing to watch. But there is another side. There was a group on this side — you can call them the left, you just called them the left — that came violently attacking the other group. So you can say what you want, but that’s the way it is.”

“I think there’s blame on both sides. I don’t have any doubt about it and you don’t have any doubt it either. And if you reported it accurately, you would say it.”

“George Washington was a slave owner. Was George Washington a slave owner? So will George Washington now lose his status? …Are we going to take down statues to George Washington? How about Thomas Jefferson? What do you think of Thomas Jefferson? You like him? OK, good. Are we going to take down his statue, because he was a major slave owner. Now we’re going to take down his statue. So you know what? It’s fine. You’re changing history, you’re changing culture, and you had people — and I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally — but you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists, OK? And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly.”

Best quote of the day, though?  From Chuck Todd.  Quoting Trump, he said, “The press has been unfair to White Nationalists and neo-Nazis.  We’ll let that sink in while we go to commercial break.”

Jesus, what a day.  Again.

Today, Twitter announced it was suspending alt-right twitter accounts.  Alt-right, you say?  You know, those guys who hate everything: women, African-Americans…hmm…It’s actually easier to say what they support, which is white supremacists.  White supremacists with guns.  Since Steve Bannon of Breitbart joined the Cheeto campaign and is now White House chief advisor to… I just can’t say it – to Him, the alt-right has spilled out into the public arena spreading their racist, misogynist, and hate filled rhetoric all over social media.  Yesterday, a week after the elections, Google and Facebook decided it was time to close the barn door, now that the entire herd of horses got out last Tuesday.  Twitter followed suit today, joining the other social media company at the back of the pack, cancelling hundreds of alt-right accounts spewing the same hateful rhetoric.

Thanks, Twitter, for helping us out and being so timely.  (That was sarcasm.)