Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes has always trusted his intellectual pedigree to keep him above the fray.

Boasting a Yale Law School degree and a smooth-talking manner, Rhodes from the start described the group he formed in 2009 — made up largely of law enforcement officials and past and present members of the military — as merely standing up for the Constitution and American liberties. When he urged his members to resist orders to impose martial law or create detention camps, he said, his were merely theoretical worries. After all, he said, Hessian mercenaries once did help the British during the American Revolution and Japanese Americans were rounded up and detained in internment camps during World War II.

He was no conspiracy theorist.

But nearly four years later, if there were any questions still remaining about what the Oath Keepers really are, an event the group has planned for this weekend should lay them all to rest. Starting on Friday at the Farragut State Park outside Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, the Oath Keepers are hosting the Northwest Patriots and Self Reliance Rally. The lineup of participating allies is revealing. ( continue to full post… )

Editor’s Note: On Tuesday, June 25, Stewart Rhodes, head of the Oath Keepers, wrote Hatewatch to say that he had spoken to another scheduled speaker at Freedompalooza 2013, Delaware Sheriff Jeff Christopher. Rhodes said Christopher cancelled his appearance after learning of its organizer’s Holocaust denial views.

The organizer of the upcoming Freedompalooza 2013, “an annual festival committed to the fight for freedom” and “restoring our Republic,” is a man who says the Nazi Holocaust never occurred, that “Bolshevik” Jews should be removed from American cities, and that it might be time to drop a nuclear bomb on Israel.

But that hasn’t stopped Paul Topete, lead singer of a band called Pokerface, from claiming a long array of speakers at his July 4-6 event in Kintnersville, Pa., including former members of Congress Cynthia McKinney of Georgia and James Traficant of Ohio. Neither McKinney nor Traficant could be reached, though both have trafficked in the kinds of conspiracy theories that are popular in the antigovernment “Patriot” movement of which Topete is a part. ( continue to full post… )

Jeffrey Earnhardt, a young prince of one of NASCAR’s royal families, and the Oath Keepers, a conspiracy-spinning “Constitutionalist” group, are joining forces for an upcoming race that “could help make Oath Keepers a household name.”

At least that’s the pitch – and the hope – of the Oath Keepers founder, Stewart Rhodes, as he tries to raise $30,000 in time to get a car on the track for a June 1 NASCAR-sanctioned second-tier race at Dover International Speedway in Dover, Del. ( continue to full post… )

In the wake of White House moves to implement some gun control by using executive orders, the antigovernment “Patriot” right has exploded with fury, claiming that virtually any regulation amounts to an infringement of the Constitution or even a prelude to a national “gun grab” by federal forces hoping to disarm citizens once and for all.

These and similar claims have come from nearly every corner of the radical right. But one of the most noteworthy recent responses comes from the Oath Keepers, a group of conspiracy-minded current and former members of law enforcement and the military who believe a tyrannical and gun-hating “New World Order” is planned by global elites. Vowing to fight any legislation to ban “assault weapons,” the Oath Keepers have announced rallies at state houses across the nation on Friday with the aim of sending a message to lawmakers that the “they will be held accountable if they choose to dishonor” their oath to the Constitution. ( continue to full post… )

The past few weeks have seen a plethora of over-the-top reactions and a flurry of right-wing freak-outs over new proposals regarding gun control in the wake of the horrific shooting deaths at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in which a lone gunman armed with an semi-automatic rifle shot and killed 20 children and seven adults, including himself.

One of the reactions is the organization of Gun Appreciation Day (GAD), an event scheduled for tomorrow and organized by Political Media, which calls itself a “Republican New Media consulting firm.” GAD has been touted in conservative media outlets and across the extreme-right blogosphere, encouraging supporters to attend local gun shows and go to local shooting ranges and gun stores in support of the Second Amendment.  The website wants to “put the fear of God” into politicians who “infringe” on the Second Amendment and hopes that you’ll donate money to help combat “Big Media and the liberals’ dirty tricks.” ( continue to full post… )

The Tea Party Nation, one of the more extreme factions of the Tea Party movement, has dipped deeper into the conspiratorial waters of antigovernment lore, most recently promoting the Oath Keepers and other antigovernment “Patriots” as the last line of defense for Americans increasingly confronted with “a government verging on evil.”

In a post published over the weekend on the Tea Party Nation’s website, regular blogger Alan Caruba painted a dire picture of the threats to freedom that lie in wait under President Obama, whom he calls a “red diaper baby” and a far-left functionary “raised from birth and mentored to embrace communism.”

“Obama’s disregard for the Constitution, its separation of powers, and Americans suffering greatly from his policies, suggests that he is not beyond making the greatest grab for power using a bogus ‘national emergency’ or manufactured ‘crisis’ to declare martial law,” Caruba wrote. He goes on to cite three recent executive orders as proof positive that Obama is setting up the nation to abandon its constitutional mandates and wage an all-out campaign against freedom. ( continue to full post… )

It turns out Stewart Rhodes, the Yale-educated lawyer who founded the Oath Keepers to encourage police and military personnel to disobey orders they deem unconstitutional, has a hard time following the rules of conduct for lawyers.

Hatewatch has learned that the State Bar of Arizona has admonished Rhodes for practicing without a license. Rhodes wrote “notices of claim” on behalf of two people who were removed from a Quartzsite, Ariz., Town Council meeting last year. The notices, which generally precede a lawsuit, accused town officials of violating the rights of Michael Roth and Jennifer Jade Jones, a local blogger, by removing the pair from a raucous council meeting that sparked national interest and widespread theorizing from the antigovernment “Patriot” movement.

“There was no justifiable reason my client should have endured being singled out for political reprisal, first amendment retaliation and subjected to false arrest,” Rhodes wrote in one notice seeking $350,000 in damages for Roth. “It is apparent that the actions of the officers were retaliatory and meant to punish, degrade, intimidate and harass.” ( continue to full post… )

In the end, the antigovernment rhetoric that so energized his defense couldn’t save Charles Dyer, the former Marine and member of the antigovernment Oath Keepers organization accused of raping his own 6-year-old daughter. Late Thursday, after four hours of deliberation, a Duncan, Okla., jury convicted Dyer and recommended a 30-year sentence.

After the verdict was read, Dyer’s hands and feet were bound in chains. His face hardened and he did not mutter a word. The only claims of innocence had come earlier as he testified. “I believe in my heart that my daughter is a victim of sexual abuse. … [But] I’ve never hurt anyone in my life, especially not my daughter,” Dyer said.

The case drew national attention after Dyer failed to appear in court for trial in 2010. (At the time of his arrest, he was also charged with possessing a grenade launcher stolen from the military in 2006; he was later acquitted of that charge.) Dyer became infamous when he went on the lam and began issuing threatening, conspiracy-laced communiqués that left no room for doubt as to his violent intentions were police to catch up with him. ( continue to full post… )

DUNCAN, Okla. — The second trial of self-described Oath Keeper Charles Dyer, who is accused of raping his 7-year-old daughter in 2010, came to an abrupt end on Tuesday when a judge declared a mistrial after discovering the district attorney’s office had improper conduct with jurors.

District Attorney James Walters had not yet finished examining his first witness, Dyer’s wife Valerie, when the court learned that three jurors in had received a follow-up questionnaire for their service in another case. The surveys, which ask jurors for their opinions on how the proceedings were conducted, are standard procedure.

But Stephens County District Judge Joe Enos said there was no way Dyer’s trial could proceed in good faith –– even if the questionnaires had nothing to do with Dyer’s case. “It could very well have had an impact,” Enos told the court. The judge scheduled a new trial for April 16. ( continue to full post… )

All Darren Wesley Huff wanted to do was arrest some county officials in Tennessee who refused to indict President Obama for using a fraudulent birth certificate. The problem is, that’s not really a criminal offense. And Huff had no authority anyway.

But he was a member of the Georgia Militia and the Oath Keepers, both antigovernment “Patriot” groups that see the federal government – and, presumably, Obama – as part of a global conspiracy to establish a socialistic, one-world government.  ( continue to full post… )