Mia Love Sues To Stop Ballot Count In Utah

Yet another election lawsuit has been filed as Rep. Mia Love (R-Utah) has asked a judge to stop the ballot count in her congressional district. Love’s campaign is seeking approval to challenge the county verification of signed envelopes that accompany absentee ballots.

Love was reported to have lost on election night, but the race is very close and has not yet been officially decided. Yesterday, the Salt Lake Tribune reported that Love has narrowed the race and trailed Democrat Ben McAdams by 873 votes.

Love alleges that her campaign representatives have been allowed to observe the counting, but that challenges to the authenticity of voter signatures have been ignored, notes the Daily Caller. A hearing was scheduled on the lawsuit for Thursday afternoon, but Salt Lake County continued counting ballots in the meantime, releasing the updated count Wednesday night.

Love was mocked by President Trump the day after the election for her loss. The president singled her out for failing to ask for an endorsement of her re-election campaign, saying, “Mia Love gave me no love and she lost. Too bad. Sorry about that, Mia.”

Love’s opponent, Democrat Ben McAdams tweeted in response to the lawsuit, “It is the job of election officials to decide what votes count, not political candidates. Rep. Love's decision to sue only in SLCo as she continues to trail in this race is unfortunate and smacks of desperation. Utah voters deserve better than this.”

Utah’s four congressional districts were all represented by Republicans prior to the midterm elections. Rep. Love’s fourth district, which includes part of Salt Lake City and its southern suburbs, is the only district in danger of being controlled by Democrats.

In other parts of the country, election results continue to trickle in with new gains for Democrats. The race for Maine’s second district was finally decided today in favor of Democrat Jared Golden. Golden, a Marine veteran, defeated Republican incumbent Bruce Poliquin. Golden’s victory brings the total Democrat gains in the House to 35 seats with seven races still undecided. 

Originally published on The Resurgent

Attacks on Evan McMullin escalate

After Evan McMullin’s sudden surge in Utah, the Trump campaign is taking him seriously and attacks are mounting. The situation in the deep red state was serious enough that Mike Pence made a late-in-the-campaign visit to Beehive State in an attempt to shore up hemorrhaging support in the wake of three disastrous debates and Trump’s sexual harassment scandal.

The first attack came from Lou Dobbs who tweeted that McMullin was “nothing but a Globalist, Romney and Mormon Mafia Tool.” McMullin responded on CNN a few days later saying, “A hallmark of Donald Trump's campaign has been to attack people based on their race and religion and all of this and so it's not a surprise to me at all.” McMullin supporters on Twitter started a tweetstorm of jokes about the bizarre insult.

The attacks continued over the weekend when Trump lashed out at McMullin and Bill Kristol in an interview on Fox News. “I love the people of Utah. I have great relationships in Utah," Trump said. "But you have a guy named Bill Kristol who's called it wrong for two years. He's a loser. He's called me wrong. He's called everything wrong. He's called the wars wrong. Everything he does is wrong. He gets his puppet to go and run in Utah.”

Trump continued, “The guy [McMullin] takes votes away from me. You know, we're going to win Utah. But he takes votes away from me, this man who I never heard of....   Now, if for some reason we lose Utah that could have a very devastating impact on the overall.” Utah has six electoral votes.

McMullin responded in Trumpian fashion: With a tweet. The independent candidate posted, “@realDonaldTrump, Yes you’ve never heard of me because while you were harassing women at beauty pageants, I was fighting terrorists abroad.” McMullin is a 10-year veteran of the CIA where he served as a clandestine agent in the Middle East. Donald Trump received student and medical deferments that exempted him from the draft, but told Howard Stern that not contracting a sexually transmitted disease was his “personal Vietnam” and made him feel like a “great and very brave soldier.”

McMullin added another tweet attacking Trump on substance. “@realDonaldTrump, you're an authoritarian, life-long liberal who disrespects life, liberty, & equality. We can't trust you on justices.” The Trump campaign did not respond to the tweet.

Then things got really nasty. Over Halloween weekend, McMullin was the target of robocalls in the new battleground state of Utah. Salt Lake City’s KUTV describes the call by William Johnson, a self-described “white nationalist” which attacks McMullin’s mother, a lesbian who is married to another woman, and alleges that McMullin, who is single, is a “closeted homosexual.”

Spoiler alert: Evan McMullin is not gay. Louise Mensch of Heat Street wrote of her earlier conversation with McMullin prior to an August interview. McMullin told her that “his greatest aspiration is to be a husband and a father.” Part of the reason that he left the CIA was his desire to one day be married and have a family, something that would be difficult for a CIA operative.

As to his mother, McMullin talked about her in an interview with the Salt Lake Tribune on Oct. 26. “I believe in the sanctity of traditional marriage. It is an important part of my faith,” McMullin said. “My mother has a different view. That is OK. I love her very much.”

McMullin told CNN that the robocall was not a surprise. “This is exactly the narrative, the approach the Donald Trump campaign has had. So it didn't even surprise when I heard news of the robocall, I just thought of course this is more of the same.”

The Trump campaign had quickly denied involvement in the robocall. Sean Spicer, the RNC communications director, said, “The call was disgusting. It's reprehensible and it was appropriately denounced by the campaign.” Spicer continued, “But for him to then turn it back on them is almost as reprehensible. We live in a country of over 300-plus million people. Not everybody who supports Donald Trump, not everyone who supports Hilary Clinton, are exactly the kind of people that you want as supporters.” Spicer was denounced in turn for calling McMullin’s response to the insults “reprehensible.”

Then a remarkable thing happened. William Johnson, who is a Trump delegate, did something that Donald Trump hasn’t done. He issued a heartfelt apology and stopped the calls. “I am truly sorry,” he told the LA Times. “I am sorry for the mean-spirited message and I humbly retract its contents.”

Finally, Pax Dickinson, founder and CTO of Wesearchr, a pro-Trump website tweeted, “America hasn’t boasted a popular movement favoring genocide of Mormons for well over a century but @EvanMcMullin is working to change that.” Another tweet threatened a “Mormoncaust” if McMullin “succeeds and throws the election to Hillary.”

As another Twitter user replied, “This does not strike me as the argument that will finally win over Mormons for Trump.”

The disdain for McMullin and Mormons shown by Trump and his supporters has undoubtedly helped fuel the McMullin campaign. When Trump complained about “this character that's running all over the state … going from coffee shop to coffee shop,” McMullin’s reply shed light on Trump’s problem.

“The funny thing is a lot of people in Utah are Mormons,” McMullin said on Politico, “they don't drink coffee. So, we've done zero campaigning in coffee shops. If Donald Trump were truly interested in the state and in the voters, he might know a thing or two about that.”

Originally published on The Resurgent

Evan McMullin's odds are improving

Evan McMullin’s star is rising. The insurgent candidate has only been on the campaign trail for two and a half months, an unbelievably short time for a presidential campaign, but he is already poised to win a state, a feat not accomplished by the Libertarian Party in its 44-year history (although the party has received one electoral vote from a faithless elector).

McMullin received some welcome publicity earlier in October when the FiveThirtyEight political blog rated his chances of winning the White House as high as three percent. Since then, McMullin surged to the lead in one Utah poll and a statistical tie in two others.

Due to extreme interest in McMullin’s campaign, FiveThirtyEight recently revisited the few Utah polls available. The analysis found that McMullin actually has a better chance of winning Utah than the average of polls indicates.

The problem with the polls is that several pollsters treat third party candidates differently than the main party candidates. Two polls that heavily favor Trump had issues that might have hurt the outcome for McMullin. A YouGov poll that gave Trump a 17-point lead only allowed respondents to select McMullin if they first selected “someone else.” Another poll by Monmouth gave Trump a 14-point lead over McMullin and six over Clinton. This poll listed third party candidates as an initial choice, but not as a secondary choice for undecided voters.

Another poll may have given McMullin an unfair boost. A poll by Rasmussen that showed McMullin one point behind Trump listed McMullin’s political affiliation as “independent conservative” when he will actually be listed on the Utah ballot as “unaffiliated.” FiveThirtyEight noted that the description as a conservative may have helped McMullin in the deeply conservative state.

The analysts at FiveThirtyEight make predictions on two models, one using polls and the “nowcast,” an estimate of what would happen if the election were held today. Using all available polls, McMullin has an estimated 14 percent chance from the polls-only forecast and 22 percent from the nowcast. When polls that didn’t treat McMullin the same as the major party candidates were excluded, his chances rose to 23 and 38 percent respectively.

The bettors on the political betting site, Predict It, seem to agree with the FiveThirtyEight assessment. Bets that McMullin will win Utah are currently trading at 36 cents. Bets that he loses are 67 cents. This is very close to the FiveThirtyEight estimate of McMullin’s chances of success.

Winning Utah is only part of McMullin’s overall strategy to deny the presidency to Trump and Hillary though. To win the election, McMullin must throw the Electoral College into a tie by denying both Trump and Hillary 270 electoral votes. FiveThirtyEight rates that possibility at less than one percent.

The blog doesn’t provide an estimate of McMullin’s chances of going all the way to the White House. They say that what would happen if the election were forced into the House of Representatives by an Electoral College deadlock “is entirely speculative.” Nevertheless, they do say that pollsters should “treat him like a candidate who has a chance to win. Because he does.”

McMullin has even earned a spot on Predict It’s market for who will win the presidential election. A bet on McMullin can currently be placed for one cent compared to 81 cents for Hillary Clinton and 21 cents for Donald Trump. In a year in which rules seem made to be broken, a one cent bet that pays a dollar if McMullin becomes president might be a good investment.

Originally published on The Resurgent

How Evan McMullin's strategy has already worked

This may be the year of the independent candidate. Evan McMullin seems to be taking large parts of the country by storm. Unlike many third party candidates, McMullin has both a popular message and strategy that could actually make him president. It’s a longshot, but it is a strategy that has already been proven to be workable.

The McMullin strategy is a plan in three phases. He is well on his way to completing the first phase, winning at least one electoral vote. If McMullin can win Utah, he will be the first third party candidate to win electoral votes since 1968. He will also win the possibility of becoming president, even though he will fall far short of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the Electoral College election.

The next phase of the McMullin strategy is to deny both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton 270 electoral votes. This phase depends on the Trump campaign not imploding in red states like Arizona, Texas and Georgia. Trump must also marshal his voters in the swing states to deny Hillary Clinton an outright electoral college victory. This is looking unlikely. Even Fox Business admitted yesterday that Hillary Clinton is likely to win 307 electoral votes, far more than are required to win the presidency.

Assuming that phases one and two fall into place, McMullin will have won Utah’s six electoral votes and Trump and Clinton will be deadlocked with less than 270 electoral votes each. At that point, the Constitution stipulates that the election will go to the House of Representatives, which will choose from among the top three winners of electoral votes. Each state gets one vote in the House election.

It is easy to assume that the majority Republicans would simply rubberstamp the Republican candidate, Donald Trump, but the situation isn’t that simple. The election would take place after the new Congress is seated so it is likely that there will be fewer Republicans than there are today. The fact that Donald Trump is not popular within his own party must also be considered. Finally, McMullin was a House staffer who has friends among the House Republican caucus. Some of these friends are the people who encouraged him to run in the first place.

It is unlikely that Democrats would support Donald Trump or that Republicans would break toward Hillary Clinton in a House election. It is possible that anti-Trump Republicans might forge a bipartisan majority to elect McMullin president.

If this sounds like a long shot, it is. If it sounds impossible, it isn’t. In fact, it has already happened in American history.

In the election of 1824, the Democratic-Republicans, the forerunner of today’s Democratic Party, were on a winning streak. They had won the previous six presidential elections as the Federalist party declined. James Monroe, the incumbent, was ending his second term and declined to run for a third.

Four candidates, all Democratic-Republicans, vied to succeed Monroe. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts, Secretary of the Treasury William Crawford of Georgia, Speaker of the House Henry Clay of Kentucky and Gen. Andrew Jackson of Tennessee all won electoral votes. None of the candidates, however, won the majority of electoral votes required to win the election.

Andrew Jackson won the most electoral votes at 99 with John Quincy Adams running a close second at 84. Henry Clay, who finished fourth, decided to use his influence as Speaker of the House to support Adams. On February 9, 1825, the House of Representatives elected John Quincy Adams the sixth president of the United States in spite of the fact that he had received fewer electoral votes and popular votes than Andrew Jackson.

It is possible, but by no means certain, that history will repeat itself this year. The three hurdles than the McMullin campaign must clear are all long shots in and of themselves. FiveThirtyEight gives McMullin a 22 percent chance of winning Utah, but rates the chance that no one will win the Electoral College at less than one percent.

The one certainty is that Evan McMullin’s popularity hinges largely on the unpopularity of the two main candidates. If either of the two major parties had nominated a fairly honest, moderately likeable candidate that person would be winning a landslide victory. Instead we have Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

And Evan McMullin has a chance to become president.

Originally published on The Resurgent

McMullin takes the lead in Utah

After several polls showing independent conservative Evan McMullin gaining ground in Utah, a new poll just out shows the third party candidate in the lead for the deep red state’s electoral votes. The poll by Emerson shows McMullin leading Republican Donald Trump 31-27 percent. The four-point lead is outside the margin of error for the poll. Democrat Hillary Clinton is in third place with 24 percent and Gary Johnson’s share of the vote has collapsed to five percent.

Over the last week, Trump’s sexual harassment accusations and “unshackled” behavior have taken a toll on his support among conservatives across the country. Nowhere have his problems been more obvious than in Utah, normally a Republican stronghold. Trump has seen a double-digit lead evaporate in the face of a series of scandals and a strong grassroots challenge by the conservative third party candidate.

The new poll culminates a week of good publicity for the McMullin campaign. Numerous conservative pundits and state and local officials have endorsed the former CIA agent and Republican policy advisor. Talk show host Glenn Beck, who recently said that he was not supporting Donald Trump, featured McMullin in two interviews on his show.

The insurgent candidate has not been included in most national polling or in states outside of Utah so it is difficult to predict his impact on the race. Sources in the campaign believe that McMullin may be gaining ground in other western states such as Nevada and Idaho. In the primary, Donald Trump fared poorly in many western states.

McMullin garnered national attention last week when the FiveThirtyEight blog detailed a scenario in which he might actually be able to win the White House. First, he would have to deny both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump an outright win in the Electoral College. Second, he would have to win at least one electoral vote for himself. Utah’s six electoral votes would work nicely. Finally, he would have to persuade a majority of the state delegations to the House of Representatives that they should pick him over Trump or Hillary. If that sounds like a tall order, it is. At the time, FiveThirtyEight rated McMullin’s chances of winning the presidency at one to three percent. (As of this writing, they rate Donald Trump’s chances of winning at 12 percent.)

As McMullin surges in Utah, the increased attention and name recognition may help his campaign in other states as well. This could be a blessing or a curse. When Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson surged last month, he quickly became the butt of jokes for his “Aleppo moments” and a bizarre clip in which he stuck his tongue out at an interviewer.

McMullin also can hurt his campaign strategy by running too strong a campaign. If the Trump campaign does poorly in the swing states or loses more red states, Hillary Clinton would win enough electoral votes to become president outright. An Electoral College deadlock requires Trump to perform reasonably well. With the recent Trump collapse in the polls, an outright Clinton win seems more and more likely.

The McMullin campaign is on the ballot or has registered as a write-in candidate in 34 states. Evan McMullin’s website contains information on how Americans can vote for him in their state.

Trumpkin attacks on GOP show who really supports Hillary

All through the campaign a common charge from Trump supporters is that a non-vote for Donald Trump is a practical vote for Hillary Clinton. Yesterday Donald Trump declared war on the Republican Party and proved the fallacy of that charge.

As Republicans rejected their nominee in the wake of plummeting support, Trump fired a fusillade of tweets at the Republican Party and Paul Ryan. Trump charged Republicans with disloyalty and said that Ryan was a “weak and ineffective leader” who had given him “zero support.”

Taking their cue, Trump surrogates and supporters took to the airwaves and social media to attack the Republican Speaker of the House. According to the Washington Times, conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham called Ryan’s refusal to defend Trump’s indefensible behavior a “really dumb move” and said that the Republican down ballot was “going to get crushed in this election” by Trump supporters. Rush Limbaugh, quoted by Media Matters, asked, “What good is there a [sic] Republican Party if it cannot even unify around the concept of winning?”

What the Trump supporters fail to admit is that Trump is not winning. A new poll shows him trailing Hillary by nine points in Ohio. Real Clear Politics polls for the battleground states show Trump trailing in all of them except Iowa. And the gap is widening.

Trump is even in trouble in red states. A new Deseret News poll shows that Trump’s lead in Utah has evaporated. Trump is now in a three-way statistical tie with Clinton and independent Evan McMullin. He also has thin margins in Texas and Georgia, states that should be solidly red.

To insist that the GOP continue to support an unpopular candidate who is in danger of dragging down the entire party shows that the Trump movement is nothing more than a personality cult. The Trumpians care nothing for the congressional races that will determine who controls the next Senate and House of Representatives.

If the Republican Party is to be unified around “the concept of winning,” it must look beyond Donald Trump. The Trumpians seem not to care that, as Trump goes down to defeat, a Republican majority in Congress will be necessary to stop Hillary’s agenda. If they truly care about the Second Amendment, religious freedom, the Supreme Court and myriad other issues the GOP needs to preserve its members in the Senate.

Instead, even as new Trump scandals roll out daily, many Trump supporters are openly calling for the defeat of Republicans in Congress on social media. These attacks on Republican congressmen, the only people that will stand between Hillary and her full liberal agenda, prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Trump movement was never about conservative principles or stopping Hillary. The Trump movement was about nothing more than the cult of Donald Trump.

The Trump supporters calling for the defeat of the GOP are not tacitly failing to support the party or conservative principles. They are actively working to give the next Clinton Administration a congressional majority with which to subvert the Constitution.

Originally published on the Resurgent

Third parties may win electoral votes this year

Evan McMullin (EvanMcMullin.com)/Gary Johnson (KnowYourMeme.com)

It can’t be said too much that 2016 is the year that breaks all the rules. Another rule that might be fractured this year is the one that says that third parties never win anything. The old saw that a vote for a third party is a wasted vote could be put to the test with the possibility that two third party candidates could win electoral votes in two different states.

Many of us remember the third party candidacy of Ross Perot in the 1990s. Perot mounted an insurgent campaign that was successful… by third party terms. Perot won 18 percent of the vote in 1992, but didn’t win any states or electoral votes. To find the last time that a third party candidate won electoral votes, we must look back to 1968 when George Wallace and Curtis LeMay won five states and 46 electoral votes under the banner of the American Independent Party.

This year, polling shows that two third party candidates are threatening to take safe states from the major parties. One blue state and one red state may be in play by candidates who could be considered a “favorite son.” This scenario is made possible by the overwhelming unpopularity of both major party candidates.

The FiveThirtyEight blog recently speculated that Libertarian Gary Johnson could eke out a win in his home state of New Mexico. The Real Clear Politics average for New Mexico showed a surge for Johnson in late September after the first presidential debate. He reached a high of 24 percent, seven points away from Donald Trump and 11 points behind Hillary Clinton, in an Albuquerque Journal poll taken between September 28 and October 1. He has since slipped to 14 percent following his “Aleppo moments,” but could possibly rebound if Donald Trump has another difficult week. Hillary is currently favored to win New Mexico.

Independent Evan McMullin is another surging third party candidate. McMullin only began his campaign in August and appeared in his first national poll on September 28. McMullin debuted in the Public Policy poll at two percent, higher than Jill Stein’s one percent, but behind Gary Johnson’s six percent. McMullin’s showing was impressive for an unknown candidate whose campaign was only two months old.

McMullin’s best chance for an electoral victory is in his home state of Utah, which is normally a deep red state, but which is also particularly unfriendly to Donald Trump. Trump finished third in the caucuses there last spring behind Ted Cruz and John Kasich. Trump’s difficulties in the deeply religious and conservative state run deeper than in other states because of Trump’s lifestyle as well as his policies.

Deseret News opinion writer Michael Worley laid out the case for McMullin in September 8 editorial. The three points he cited were McMullin’s honesty, his social conservatism and Trump’s troubling record on religious freedom. The LDS church, which is normally politically neutral, issued a statement denouncing Trump’s proposed Muslim ban on the basis of religious freedom.

Because Utah is presumed to be a safe red state, polling is sparse. A June Salt Lake Tribune poll showed Trump and Clinton virtually tied at 29-26 percent with Gary Johnson at 16 percent. McMullin debuted in a Public Policy poll on August 23 at nine percent. Trump had surged to 39 percent, Clinton held steady at 24 and Gary Johnson dropped to 12 percent.

The most recent Utah poll is a Dan Jones and Associates poll reported in the Salt Lake Tribune on September 25. Donald Trump still led Hillary Clinton, but the margin was reduced to nine points. At 34 percent, Trump’s lead was due to the crowded field. Clinton maintained 25 percent and Johnson and McMullin were in a statistical tie at 13 and 12 percent respectively. Eight percent remained undecided.

A McMullin win in Utah would also require a variety of favorable factors. Trump’s lead could be reduced, perhaps after a poor debate performance or as a result of a scandal. Gary Johnson’s difficulties might also lead third party voters to switch their votes to McMullin. An interview on the web show of former Libertarian candidate Austin Petersen hints at crossover appeal.

McMullin also has a secret weapon. Deseret News reported that McMullin is fundraising from Mitt Romney’s list of 2012 supporters. If McMullin proves viable, an endorsement by Mitt Romney, one of the most prominent anti-Trump Republicans, could put him over the top in Utah.

Even though Johnson and McMullin may only win one state, it could change the shape of the race. FiveThirtyEight ran simulations that showed that the loss of New Mexico’s five electoral votes could prevent Hillary Clinton from winning the 270 electoral votes necessary to become president. The same could be true if Donald Trump lost Utah’s six votes in a close race.

In the case of deadlock, the House of Representatives would decide the next president. The House would choose from the top three candidates by electoral vote. Since Utah has one more electoral vote than New Mexico, McMullin would displace Johnson in a deadlock if both win their home states. Each state delegation in the House of Representatives would receive one vote. Since the House will almost certainly be controlled by Republicans, the choice would be between the unpopular Trump and the unknown McMullin.

The odds are still long against a third party candidate carrying a state, let alone becoming president. FiveThirtyEight calculated that the probability of a Johnson victory in New Mexico and that state deciding the election occurring together would be 0.15 percent, almost a million to one shot.

It may be an interesting election.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Jade Helm is not precursor to martial law

Jade Helm 15, an upcoming military exercise in the southwestern United States is the latest example of alarmism by conspiracy mongers. Once again, conspiracy buffs are predicting the impending imposition of martial law in the United States. Once again, as a service to readers, I don my tinfoil hat to investigate the claims that Jade Helm 15 is part of sinister plot by mysterious forces.

Jade Helm 15 is a large, multistate special operations exercise that will take place from July 15 through September 15, 2015. A map showing the location of the exercise includes the states of Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada and California. A small notation on the map, which was part of a slideshow by the US Army Special Operations Command detailing the exercise, is the source of much of the alarm over Jade Helm. The southwestern states are divided into “permissive,” “uncertain,” and “hostile” regions. Texas and Utah, two of the very reddest states in elections, are labeled as “hostile” red regions for the exercise.

The logical leap that Utah and Texas are hostile and will be invaded is nonsensical when viewed in the context of the rest of the map. Conservative Arizona is labeled as “leaning friendly” while liberal New Mexico is considered to be “leaning hostile.” Colorado, which just sent a new Republican senator to Washington is called “permissive” (friendly). The southern tip of blue California is red and marked as an “insurgent pocket.” There have been no actual reports of insurgent activity in the San Diego area.

Why is Texas singled out as hostile by the military planners of the exercise? The army slideshow (available in full on Gawker) provides an answer. “The United States Special Operations Command,” the slide reads, “has conducted numerous exercises in Texas, because Texans are historically supportive of efforts to prepare our soldiers, airmen, marines and sailors to fight the enemies of the United States.” In other words, the army is training in Texas because Texans are loyal supporters of the military in real life, the polar opposite of their role in the Jade Helm exercise.

The slideshow goes on to explain that Texas’ “large areas of undeveloped land with low population densities with access to towns” make an ideal training environment. It also cites the ability to have soldiers operate “outside normal support mechanisms,” adapt to “unfamiliar terrain, social and economic conditions,” operate “in and around communities where anything out of the ordinary will be spotted and reported” and “the opportunity to work with civilians to gain their trust and an understanding of the issues.”

The Fifth Column blog points out other flaws with the conspiracy theories surrounding Jade Helm such as that the other notes on the map refer to training organizations. “JOAX” is a joint operations access exercise.” “NSWTU” refers to a naval special warfare training unit. In an actual military operation, a NSWTU would be replaced by a Seal Team, designated as an “ST.”

Other unit designations refer to special operations units, which are not used for invasion and occupation roles. An “MSOT” is a Marine special operations team such as a Force Recon. ODAs are US Army Special Forces Operational Detachment Alpha teams, also known as “A-Teams.” ODH and ODG are presumably Special Forces operational detachments as well.

The Fifth Column speculates that the exercise will be related to SERE training for survival, evasion, resistance and escape. This scenario might put special operations forces down behind “enemy” lines and have them attempt to make their way to friendly territory. Along the way, other units taking part in the exercise might attempt to capture and interrogate the special operations soldiers.

This idea is supported by other parts of the slideshow which note that “some individuals may conduct suspicious activities.” The army also says that “some participants will be wearing civilian attire and driving civilian vehicles.” The total local force will be approximately 60 people.

What of the seemingly sinister slogan on the Jade Helm logo, “master the human domain?” Many conspiracy theorists hold that this is a hint at Jade Helm’s true purpose, to psychologically condition Americans to accept the presence of military forces in preparation for the eventual implementation of martial law. The not-so-sinister answer can be found in an unclassified report by the US Army War College from 2013. The report, part of the civilian research project “Mastering the Human Domain,” details lessons from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on how special operations troops and conventional forces can better work together to gain support of the local population.

This concept of “winning hearts and minds” dates back to the Vietnam War and was instrumental in Iraq’s “Anbar Awakening,” in which the local population of Anbar province came to support the Coalition Forces and turn against the al Qaeda insurgents.

Further, the charge that the exercise is supposed to condition Americans to the acceptance of a large military presence makes no sense when the actual army statements are considered. With many participants in civilian clothes and vehicles, they would be indistinguishable from real civilians. Second, 60 soldiers is not a large force.

The military answered many of the conspiracy charges in a Stars and Stripes article. Lt. Col. Mark Lastoria of the US Army Special Operations Command said that Jade Helm was similar to past exercises. The primary difference, he said, was “the use of new challenging terrain,” which is similar to the regions where the special operations forces have been fighting. Presumably, this is a reference to Afghanistan and Iraq.

When asked about the idea that the exercise was a cover for a military takeover, Lt. Col. Lastoria answered, “That notion was proposed by a few individuals who are unfamiliar with how and why USASOC (US Army Special Operations Command) conducts training exercises. This exercise is routine training to maintain a high level of readiness for Army Special Operations Forces because they must be ready to support potential missions anywhere in the world on a moment’s notice.” Translated from military jargon, the colonel said that the conspiracy theorists don’t know what they are talking about.

 

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