"Does your sheriff think he's more powerful than the president?"

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/investigations/2022/11/03/county-sheriff-constitutional-power-richard-mack-oath-keepers/10627256002/

One morning last year, around 60 sheriffs and deputies gathered outside Houston for a training that proved to be less about enforcing laws than about subverting them. After a prayer from a pastor dressed like George Washington (wig, frilly collar, musket), the crowd heard from Gary Heavin, the founder of the Curves International fitness chain, who called the 2020 presidential election of Joe Biden “blatantly, in-our-faces stolen.” Then he turned to the reporters in the room (“propagandists”) identifiable by their masks (“diapers”), and said, “I don’t know whether this is going to scare you or comfort you, but just about every person in this room is armed.” The room erupted in cheers 1.

Heavin was helping the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association fund this training, but the dominant presence that day was the group’s founder and director, Richard Mack. With his Reaganesque swoosh of dark hair and the cadence of a country preacher, he delivered his organization’s central message: that sheriffs, within their counties, are more powerful than any state or federal authority, and that they can resist “tyranny” by refusing to enforce laws they believe violate the U.S. Constitution. “This is a peaceful and effective process, à la Martin Luther King, à la Gandhi, à la Rosa Parks,” he said.

The Anti-Defamation League calls Mack’s organization an “anti-government extremist group,” while he prefers to invoke Barry Goldwater’s 1964 battle cry: “Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice.” Since founding the group in 2011, Mack estimates it has trained at least 800 sheriffs. Agencies in several states, including Texas and Virginia, have allowed officers to use these events for professional education credits.

While Mack once focused on gun rights, now he’s pushing sheriffs to investigate the 2020 election. One of his sheriff allies is facing a state investigation over his role in seizing a voting tabulator, while others are talking about boosting surveillance during future elections, raising concerns that they will try to intimidate voters. “I don’t think any sheriff is trying to intimidate people not to vote,” Mack recently told The New York Times.

But how influential are Mack’s views? Very, as it turns out.

*snip*

[LetMyPeopleVote]

1. The constitutional sheriff idiots are both crazy and dangerous

[crickets]

5. +1

[Hekate]

2. KnR

[Chainfire]

3. Somebody forgot to tell this "good 'ole boy" from a neighboring county:

https://thenewamerican.com/florida-gov-arrests-replaces-sheriff-for-upholding-second-amendment/

[tishaLA]

4. The MLK, Gandhi, and Rosa Parks comparisons are so perverse

because they elide the fact that those people were engaged in civil disobedience and were willfully challenging the law but these morons have sworn a duty to uphold them.