AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday asked the State Guard to monitor a U.S. military training exercise dubbed "Jade Helm 15" amid Internet-fueled suspicions that the war simulation is really a hostile military takeover.
The request comes a day after more than 200 people packed a meeting in rural Bastrop County and questioned a U.S. Army commander about whether the government was planning to confiscate guns or implement martial law. Bastrop County Judge Paul Pape said "conspiracy theorists" and "fear mongers" had been in a frenzy.
Pape thanked Abbott for the letter to the Texas State Guard, which he believed helped emphasize the benefit of the military training rather than further fuel theorists.
"It's a sad when people's greatest fear is their own government," Pape said. "Think about the ramification of that. If Americans go to sleep at night worrying whether their own government is going to sell them out before morning, it'd be hard to sleep."
Suspicions about Jade Helm intensified on some conservative websites and social media after a map labeled Texas, Utah and parts of California as "hostile" for the purposes of the three-month training exercise that begins in July. Such war simulations aren't unusual, though the Army has acknowledged that the size and scope of Jade Helm makes it unique.
Texas and six other states are hosting the exercises on public and private lands. The Army says the terrain and topography in the areas selected are ideal to replicate foreign combat zones.
No other governor had so publicly addressed the training exercise.
"It is important that Texans know their safety, constitutional rights, private property rights and civil liberties will not be infringed," Abbott wrote. "By monitoring the Operation on a continual basis, the State Guard will facilitate communications between my office and the commanders of the Operation to ensure that adequate measures are in place to protect Texans."
U.S. Army Lt. Col. Mark Lastoria told the crowd in Bastrop on Monday that the exercise will involve 1,200 soldiers and all four branches of the military, according to the Austin American-Statesman. He said people with a "personal agenda" about the exercise had been spreading misinformation.
Lastoria spoke for two hours, but some left the meeting still unconvinced.
Pape told The Associated Press that some came from as far as Houston and Dallas to attend the meeting. He said the county could reap as much as $150,000 in economic activity from the exercise, which in Bastrop is set to include 60 soldiers, two Humvees and a helicopter.
Bastrop County is home to Camp Swift, the largest base for the Texas National Guard, and Pape said most people likely won't even notice.
"There's been a lot of dust thrown in the air, a lot of haze," Pape said. "Those who wanted to raise concerns on the one hand succeeded. They've raised a lot of attention about this. But the fact is the message is clear: Jade Helm is a well-designed and a well-constructed training operation."
Suspicions about Jade Helm intensified on some conservative websites and social media after a map labeled Texas, Utah and parts of California as "hostile" for the purposes of the three-month training exercise that begins in July.
There's dumb and dumber, and then there is dumbest.
TVWP: "Janeway says archly, "Sometimes it's the female of the species that initiates mating." Is the female of the species trying to initiate mating now? Janeway accepts Paris's apology and tells him she's putting him in for a commendation. The salamander sex was that good." "Not bad - for a human"-Bishop to Ripley GALACTIC DOMINATION Empire Board Game visit link below: GALACTIC DOMINATION
If Obama had a functioning pair of balls, the first time a state guardsman got anywhere near a military exercise, he would federalize/disband the Guard (long overdue anyway) and throw Abbot into a kennel in Guantanamo as a "terrorist".
I bet the State Guard is there less to "monitor" the military in case they get up to shenanigans (as if the Texas State Guard could do anything about it if they did) and more to have an excuse to tag along on what will be a rather interesting and useful training opportunity. That he can 'justify' it as a sop to the conspiracy loons is a bonus.
"How can I wait unknowing?
This is the price of war,
We rise with noble intentions,
And we risk all that is pure..." - Angela & Jeff van Dyck, Forever (Rome: Total War)
"On and on, through the years,
The war continues on..." - Angela & Jeff van Dyck, We Are All One (Medieval 2: Total War)
"Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear." - Ambrose Redmoon
"You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain." - Harvey Dent, The Dark Knight
Elfdart wrote:If Obama had a functioning pair of balls, the first time a state guardsman got anywhere near a military exercise, he would federalize/disband the Guard (long overdue anyway) and throw Abbot into a kennel in Guantanamo as a "terrorist".
The State Guard is unfederalizable, and not the President's to disband.
"preemptive killing of cops might not be such a bad idea from a personal saftey[sic] standpoint..." --Keevan Colton
"There's a word for bias you can't see: Yours." -- William Saletan
Elfdart wrote:That's Texas for you: Not quite large enough to be its own country and much too large to be a lunatic asylum.
I'm going to say this against my better judgment.
You know while I have nothing against you as a person and I'm sure you're you'd probably be a pretty cool person to know. Go fuck your self, seriously, go fuck your self. I'm a Texas native and NOBODY I know from Texas has any interest or gives any heed to obvious paranoiac bullshit like this.
I would explain how the overwhelming majority of Texians are no different than you and pay no attention to the "chase the ratings" and "lets make a mountain out of a mole hill" bullshit that plagues American news in general, but I'm not. You know why? Because no matter what I or any other Texan (or southerner in general says) the perception that we as a people are all ignorant morons will never change and after some of the shit I heard my coworkers say last night and over the last few days and now this... just fuck off.
In that case, Gigabyte...honest question: who is Abbott pandering to? Politicians don't generally do this shit unless there's some benefit to them, so who is he pandering to in the Texan electorate?
Chronological Incontinence: Time warps around the poster. The thread topic winks out of existence and reappears in 1d10 posts.
Out of Context Theatre, this week starring Darth Nostril.
-'If you really want to fuck with these idiots tell them that there is a vaccine for chemtrails.'
so who is he pandering to in the Texan electorate?
The crazy assholes who are most likely to donate money to him.
Bingo. Those would also happen to be the same assholes who managed to keep Perry in office FOR FIFTEEN FUCKING YEARS. The pork taken', lyin', two timein' sack of shit that he is.
Yeah, fellow Texan here. Contrary to what Family Guy would have you believe, we're not all rednecks worrying about "THEM DEMOCATS Coming to Get ma Guns"
so who is he pandering to in the Texan electorate?
The crazy assholes who are most likely to donate money to him.
Bingo. Those would also happen to be the same assholes who managed to keep Perry in office FOR FIFTEEN FUCKING YEARS. The pork taken', lyin', two timein' sack of shit that he is.
And the point I'm making here is that to be able to do that, they have to be numerous.
Chronological Incontinence: Time warps around the poster. The thread topic winks out of existence and reappears in 1d10 posts.
Out of Context Theatre, this week starring Darth Nostril.
-'If you really want to fuck with these idiots tell them that there is a vaccine for chemtrails.'
Even accounting for that, I presume Texas still holds elections right? First past the post? He would still require a significant portion of the electorate to actually vote for him in order to get into office.
"I reject your reality and substitute my own!" - The official Troll motto, as stated by Adam Savage
You would be surprised just how easy it is to sway people to vote for the one you like by throwing money at propaganda.
It has become clear to me in the previous days that any attempts at reconciliation and explanation with the community here has failed. I have tried my best. I really have. I pored my heart out trying. But it was all for nothing.
You win. There, I have said it.
Now there is only one thing left to do. Let us see if I can sum up the strength needed to end things once and for all.
Tribble wrote:Even accounting for that, I presume Texas still holds elections right? First past the post? He would still require a significant portion of the electorate to actually vote for him in order to get into office.
The fact is, Texas is turning "blue" due to the growing Hispanic demographic. However, Hispanics are generally pretty socially conservative (as said), but really tend to vote against Republicans (or don't vote at all) as opposed to voting for Democrats.
Texas idiocy extends past rich old white dudes, though said white dudes gerrymandering the shit out of the districts doesn't help and leads to more voter apathy.
Maybe the problem is that there's nothing about the Texan electoral process that selects against people who believe in paranoid black-helicopter idiocy...
The glorious state that put Louie Gomer-- excuse me, Gohmert-- and Ted Cruz into Congress, subscribing to paranoid conspiracy theories about the gubmint? Say it ain't so.
Seriously, I do get that some of you guys are actually sane, but the fact of the matter is that your image isn't always presented as well as you do yourselves. The electoral process is one thing, but there's plenty of folks in Texas who buy the bollocks about ISIS training camps in Mexico and talk about seceding (again) every electoral cycle. Until that goes away... you're gonna have to deal with how that makes you look.
Eh, I tend to be irritated by the way that the state gets presented in the media, and also the cultural memory that folks have of the state.
To be honest, though, visitors from out of state or out of country tend to be surprised when they come here. There are a lot of really neat things to be found in a state as big as this, whether it's a hole in the wall restaurant or some awesome looking landscapes. It's a surprisingly diverse place that gets passed over and unreported, and that much more rewarding to show the good parts of.
well anything that big is gonna be diverse. That said as I stated in an unrelated thread it's not so much about the reality as it's about the image you project.
And I dout it's a also case "screw the rules I have money" when it comes to US elections but a combination of apathy and visibility (aka candidates with more money to use get better visiblity thus more people know about them and a lot of people think they can't affect the voting result and thus don't vote at all allowing fringe elements to have disportionetly large repensation in the votes).
I may be an idiot, but I'm a tolerated idiot
"I think you completely missed the point of sigs. They're supposed to be completely homegrown in the fertile hydroponics lab of your mind, dried in your closet, rolled, and smoked...
Oh wait, that's marijuana..."Einhander Sn0m4n
Lord Revan wrote:well anything that big is gonna be diverse. That said as I stated in an unrelated thread it's not so much about the reality as it's about the image you project.
And I dout it's a also case "screw the rules I have money" when it comes to US elections but a combination of apathy and visibility (aka candidates with more money to use get better visiblity thus more people know about them and a lot of people think they can't affect the voting result and thus don't vote at all allowing fringe elements to have disportionetly large repensation in the votes).
And how is that different from everywhere else? I don't that that's a uniquely Texas problem.
"I reject your reality and substitute my own!" - The official Troll motto, as stated by Adam Savage
I got to thinkin' about it and honestly I know exactly why Texans, and again southerners in general, tend to vote conservative.
Do yourself a favor and next time you have a chance to watch a southern election cycle keep an eye out for words like "Humbly" or "humility",
or phrases like "in my humble opinion", or "My opponent seeks to take X away from you". Southerners tend to respond greatly to people who know how to play to their sensibilities, and sometimes playin' to those sensibilities means actin' the part of the underdog. Messin' your speech up a bit, mispronouncing a hey word... These qualities are endearing, they play to the southern ideal that we are the underdogs. Unfortunately it also tends to reinforce the idea that we are unlearned hicks who can barely speak English, but it works wonders in making sure that the typical southerner votes for the person you want them to vote for. Take the current governor of Texas, Greg Abbot.
When he was running there was a big to do about the fact that he's stuck in a wheel chair. It was all over the news, people were rooting for him to win because "That nice man in the wheelchair deserves to be governor", never mind the fact that he sued the homeowner on whose property the tree that maimed him stood for 10 million dollars. As if it was the homeowners personal fault for crippling him and not the fucking thunderstorm that was raging at the time, he then turned around and spent most of his campaign bitching about the one thing Texans love to bitch about the most, lawyers. Go Figure.
Wal-Mart issued a statement Monday to TPM dismissing "rumors" that tunnels were being built by the U.S. military beneath closed stores in an attempt to launch a takeover of Texas.
"There’s no truth to the rumors," Wal-Mart spokesperson Lorenzo Lopez told TPM via email.
The tunnels are part of a series of conspiracy theories surrounding "Jade Helm 15," a military training operation set to take place later this year in seven Western states. The conspiracy theorists have said the operation may be part of a covert attempt to takeover Texas and other states.
In response to the theories, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) last week issued an order for the state guard to monitor the U.S. military — a decision he defended on Monday.
Theorists have suggested that five Wal-Mart retail locations were shuttered abruptly because of Jade Helm 15. They have suggested that the closed stores, one of which is located in Texas, will serve as "food distribution centers" and will be used to "house the headquarters of invading troops from China, here to disarm Americans one by one."
Another theory suggested that there was already a system of underground tunnels below the closed Wal-Marts.
To criticize a person for their race is manifestly irrational and ridiculous, but to criticize their religion, that is a right. That is a freedom. The freedom to criticize ideas, any ideas - even if they are sincerely held beliefs - is one of the fundamental freedoms of society. A law which attempts to say you can criticize and ridicule ideas as long as they are not religious ideas is a very peculiar law indeed. -Rowan Atkinson Cystic Fibrosis Foundation
Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday defended his decision to have the Texas State Guard monitor a military training exercise that has riled conspiracy theorists, denying he has lent credence to their suspicions.
Instead, Abbott said his office is simply looking to serve as a "communication facilitator" between the military and concerned citizens, some of whom recently packed an information session in Bastrop County about the exercise, known as Jade Helm 15.
And Chuck Norris' legend of invincibility ends when his brain begins to decay:
“The US government says, ‘It’s just a training exercise’,” wrote Norris, 75. “But I’m not sure the term ‘just’ has any reference to reality when the government uses it.”
Please, can we have a hurricane or tornado score a direct hit on the RNC and wipe out all these fucktards at once?
