In late August, Bluestem posted CSPOA in Minnesota Update: "Constitutional" Sheriff Richard Mack to tour state in October.
At the end of September. the Minnesota Reformer, Deena Winter updated that look with Right-wing ‘constitutional sheriffs’ movement comes to Minnesota.
Last week, the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights' Chuck Tanner invited readers to Meet the group behind CSPOA’S visit to LeCenter, Minnesota.
As someone who grew up in sunny rural Le Sueur County, my interest was immediately captured.
Tanner reports:
As Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA) founder and Advisory Board President Richard Mack kicks off a week of speaking engagements in Minnesota, IREHR takes a closer look at some of the on-the-ground organizations and individuals boosting the pro-paramilitary group’s efforts in the state.
This article briefly examines the group We Are The Taxpayer (WAT), the contact organization for Constitutional Sheriff and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA) leader Richard Mack’s October 2 appearance in Le Center.
As we see, CSPOA’s contacts are again animated by far-right conspiracism and middle American nationalism.
WHO IS WE ARE THE TAXPAYER?
We Are The Taxpayer (WAT) is a state-registered Limited Liability Company that lists Marie Meyer as its registered agent.[1] In a letter to Rock County Sheriff Evan Verbrugge, Meyer announced that We Are The Taxpayer “is bringing guest speaker Sheriff Richard Mack from Arizona,” continuing, in far-right vernacular, that CSPOA and the “County Sheriff Project” served to “reaffirm the constitutional power of the Sheriff to refuse to enforce unconstitutional federal laws.”[2]
On its website, WAT promotes Mack’s speaking tour, gives out contact information for the anti-democratic group, and claims that Mack will “teach Sheriffs, the police, all public officials, and citizens as well, the authority and responsibility that exists under our U.S. Constitution to which all public officials take an oath to protect and defend.”[3]
IREHR’s September 28 letter to the Attorney General of Minnesota gives lie to this fallacious claim – providing ample evidence that “there is nothing Constitutional about the CSPOA.”
The Le Center-based We Are The Taxpayer casts itself as concerned with “the governance of our local Southern Minnesota Schools, Cities, Townships and Counties,” alleging a “top down” government shaped by NGOs that “enforces political agendas with little or no regard for the well-being of the taxpayer, their property rights or financial assessments assigned against them.”[4]
As quickly becomes apparent, the group mixes a defense of corporate interests, such as the oil industry, with a variant of the middle American nationalist ideology that animates diverse parts of the far right, ranging from white nationalists and neo-Nazis to national conservatives and so-called “constitutionalist” groups like CSPOA – an ideology depicting middle Americans squeezed between international elites “above” them and people of color and the poor “below” them.
Alongside this, WAT lashes out at environmental protection policies and boosts property rights claims that have long accompanied the machinations of pro-militia groups such as CSPOA.
On the pro-corporate front, We Are The Taxpayer declares that “Under the guise of needing to protect the earth against climate change,” restrictions and “changes in our sources of energy” are “costing the American citizens an astronomical amount of money” and placing “an undue target on fossil fuels: coal, oil, and natural gas and has led to restrictions of these types of energy sources.” The group says alternative energy sources, such as solar and wind, “are heavily subsidized by grants” which are the equivalent of ‘the apple’ in the Garden of Eden,” the far right group claims.[5]
In addition, alongside defending some of the largest transnational companies on earth, We Are The Taxpayer demonstrates defining elements of middle American nationalism. The group casts “Non-Government Organizations,” or NGOs, as “non-profit entities that are heavily involved in environmental, humanitarian and social service programs, working to empower the disadvantaged and minority groups.” Continuing that they are “sanctioned by the United Nations” and “often serve as lobbyists for the World Economic Forum and work closely with political parties and trade unions,” We Are The Taxpayer concludes that
“NGOs help plan and write the agendas intended for use to ‘transform’ America from a free capitalistic society where honesty and hard work are the key to happiness and wealth, into a welfare state ruled with tyranny and stripped of freedom and rights, especially property rights.”
For WAT, the “threat” to America emanates from global elites alongside trade unions and groups “working to empower disadvantaged and minority groups.”
Coming back to its anti-tax moniker, the group concludes that,
“The ultimate goal of our ‘new government’ is to tax our private properties away from us and turn America into a socialist ruled country with all of the population dependent on government…This is exactly what we have present here in America. It is here by design. It has been planned. Unless we wake up from the ‘woke-ism’ that has been forced upon us and implanted in our brains through propaganda and brain-washing, we are destined for a ‘total transformation of America,’ as Obama foretold.”[6]
The WAT website’s “Glossary” also drives home the middle American nationalist combination of perceived dual attacks from international elites “above” and people of color and poor people and “illegals” “below,” including the following:
“AFFA Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing: It’s purpose is to enforce social justice standards in communities by requiring agencies that apply for HUD Grants to have a balanced mix of ethnicity and income/poverty levels evenly distributed within the community…
Agenda 21: A comprehensive blueprint for the reorganization of human society that was planned for the world by the United Nations…
Clean Water Act: Its proposed purpose was to regulate discharges into the water and to serve as a pollution control program, but has turned into a ‘sustainable development’ enforcement policy with the result of usurping private property and restricting common farm and ranching practices…
Equity: Redistribution of wealth. Creating equal outcomes for all regardless of whether a person works for what they have.
Global Governance: Governing all of the world’s people under the rule of one worldwide administration…
National Governors Association: A 501(c)(3) private organization. They advocate for Smart Growth programs, more benefits for illegals, block workfare requirements for welfare recipients…
PCSD: President’s Council on Sustainable Development. Created by Bill Clinton in 1993 to impose Agenda 21…
Social Justice: The redistribution of wealth. The demand that everyone should have identical resources, privileges, housing, education, etc., regardless of the effort they put into working for them.
Sustainable Development: An agenda to control the economy and the population by focusing every issue of life’s concern around climate change, redistribution of wealth, social, racial and environmental concerns, whether real or fictitious.”[7]
In line with the above, the group promotes several similar “Resources.”[8] These include Tom DeWeese’s American Policy Center, a group that promotes the Agenda 21 conspiracy theory, the common far-right refrain that a voluntary United Nations program amounts to an “international globalist grab for power.”[9] It also includes Cause of America, the so-called “election integrity” organization backed by election denier Mike Lindell.[10]
We Are The Taxpayers also promotes as a “resource” the conspiracy-obsessed and election-denial website Stop World Control, which alleges, among other things, that:
“[P]andemics are not a natural occurrence, but meticulously orchestrated operations, unleashed on humanity with the purpose of reducing the world population, and increasing control over the survivors.”
“Scientific data reveals how vaccines are greatly reducing the world population. They also start the process of transhumanism, by injecting substances that modify the human DNA and spread nanotechnology throughout the human body.”
“CRY FOR FREEDOMreveals the officially promoted agenda of globalist organizations to create a new species of ‘humanoids’ or ‘cyborgs’: humans that will be genetically engineered and technologically enhanced, to greatly increase their physical and mental abilities.”[11]
Driving home the underlying nature of its conspiracism, Stop World Control promotes the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. This crassly antisemitic forgery fueled pogroms against Jews in Czarist Russia and became standard fare for the German Nazis of WWII. On a page of its website dedicated to “The Cabal,” Stop World Control includes a video by Janet Ossebaard and Cytha Koeter that declares,
“The Protocols of Zion, dismissed as a hoax, but we can assure you after months of in-depth research, that they are not. They were slightly altered, yes, but they are not a hoax. In 24 protocols, the Elders of Zion described their vision of the world, its population, and their ultimate goal – absolute world dominance and a one-world government.”[12]
In particular, the video goes on to re-hash the Khazar conspiracy theory, claiming that leaders of the medieval kingdom of Khazaria, who converted to Judaism, migrated westward to form the nucleus of European Jewry (Ashkenazic). The video continues that the Rothschild family – a favorite canard of antisemites – were descended from Khazars who used the Protocols to gin up antisemitism. The video continues, “Ashkenazi, Nazi. Do you still believe that’s a coincidence?”[13] . . .
Readers can read the rest in Meet the group behind CSPOA’S visit to LeCenter, Minnesota.
Bluestem has a couple of bits to add. Founder Marie Meyer lives in the rural Cleveland, Minnesota, area, where she serves as a Washington Township's Town Supervisor Seat A. She ran unopposed in 2022 (not unusual for down-ballot local races in rural Minnesota).
She has spoken several times at Le Sueur County Commissioners meetings, sharing such concerns as the "“Election Integrity Watch” website and comments on Leah Petricka, Region 9 presentation from last Board meeting" (September 27, 2022) and "inviting Commissioners to “Transforming Our World” presentation by Tom DeWeese on Friday, September 15 at 6:30 p.m. at the Le Center American Legion and bringing up concerns on Global Government" (September 5, 2023 minutes).
Readers may remember our precent post, Thanks to a generous patron donation, Kandiyohi County GOP hosting Agenda 21 conspiracy theorist Tom DeWeese in Spicer, September 16, Yep, part of that other fellow's tour.
But these events weren't Meyer's first rodeo with We Are The Taxpayer in Le Sueur County. In May, the Le Sueur County News' Carson Hughes reported in Speaker at Le Sueur County event levies claims of Marxist conspiracy:
A newly formed Le Sueur County activist group, We Are The Taxpayer, hosted a meeting on Thursday, May 11 featuring keynote speaker Trevor Loudon, a New Zealand blogger, author, and filmmaker, who claimed “Minnesota is in the grip of Marxist revolution” orchestrated by “subversives” secretly working for China, Russia and other foreign adversaries.
“We have tens of thousands of traitors in the country now, folks at federal state and local level, tens of thousands of them. It’s the reason why we have the problems we do,” Loudon told a mostly receptive audience of around 50-100 people at the American Legion Post 108 in Le Center. Brochures had been sent out by mail to Le Sueur County residents advertising the event and featuring a survey asking questions about voter integrity, school issues and more.
In his remarks at the Le Center event, Loudon claimed that America’s federal and state governments, as well as non-government organizations, had been infiltrated by “enemies” seeking the downfall of capitalism.
He called for espionage investigations into over 100 Democratic congressmen and a few Republicans he accused of working for foreign governments, claimed President Joe Biden “has been working for the Chinese since 2001,” and accused a sweeping number of DFL officials of being Marxists, including Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Gov. Tim Walz, Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, former vice presidents Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale, Attorney General Keith Ellison and the late Sen. Paul Wellstone.
Loudon has made similar charges of alleged Marxist and communist subversion since the 1980s as the face of the Campaign for a Soviet-Free New Zealand.
His speech included unfounded claims that the COVID-19 pandemic was deliberately released by China to harm then-President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign, that the riots in reaction to the death of George Floyd were pre-planned by the Freedom Road Socialist Organization and that communist subversives in Congress were responsible for the dissolution of the House of Un-American Activities Committee, which led investigations into alleged communist sympathizers in government and Hollywood during the second Red Scare.
Loudon’s remarks generated multiple rounds of applause from the crowd over the course of the night. At least one audience member raised his hand to express skepticism of the speaker’s claims and questioned him on his qualifications. Loudon responded that he didn’t have a Ph.D., but that he had authored multiple books and films on the subject and had not been sued.
Among Loudon’s targets was the Blandin Foundation, a private foundation based in Grand Rapids which awards grants to rural Minnesota counties, cities and organizations to promote broadband connectivity; community leadership; local arts, culture and activities; inclusivity of minority populations; and economic development.
Loudon charged that the foundation was run by “leftists,” and that diversity, equity and inclusion were “Marxist buzzwords,” signaling a plot to shift the state’s voting patterns to the left by welcoming immigrants, and claimed that grant-giving entities promoting the development of low-income housing and sustainable land management practices were cooperating with the United Nations in a covert conspiracy to displace rural residents and manipulating city councilors and county commissioners with grant dollars.
“They’re going to lock up all of your land, they’re going to make it impossible to farm, they’re going to drive your people into the cities, they’re going to fill your cities with immigrants, and in 15 years time, you will not recognize the state,” said Loudon. “Plus, they will be at your kids 24/7, turning your kids into little progressives and little socialists who don’t quite know what gender they are.”
Le Sueur County Broadband Initiative Coordinator Barbara Droher-Kline, who has worked closely with the Blandin Foundation since 2018, disputed Loudon’s accusations that the organization was pushing an agenda.
“They really got us moving in a direction of partnering with companies to get broadband in the county,” said Droher-Kline. “That was the only focus. There was nothing about any of the other issues that he addressed; it was simply to give us expertise and resources to focus on broadband planning. . . .
Marie Meyer, a founder of We Are The Taxpayer, said the group was formed to rally against outside influencers, which she said were offering federal and state grants to manipulate local elected officials to support green energy and immigration.
“They’re coming in and influencing our commissioners with rules, regulations maybe built around climate change and encouraging our commissioners to sign up. They’re using a lot of our tax money to accomplish their goals,” said Meyer. “They are not elected officials. They should have no part in the say or outcome in our government. We elected our commissioners to do the job, not them.”
i'd noted the presence of Meyer's notions in Chapter 2: MN Republican BPOU party units normalizing extremists, conspiracy theories.
Meyer has blossomed into organizing around conspiracy theories after some time in toiling in the pro-life movement. A clustrmap entry notes that she was a President of Kato Pro-life Resources, Inc."
That seems to be suppoertd in a local news report.
For the November 3, 2019 Mankato Free Press, Brian Arola reported in Demonstrators stand vigil as high courts weigh abortion access:
. . . Although Mankato’s Planned Parenthood does not provide abortions, Miller said the group prays it will one day close because it’s a “feeder clinic” to Planned Parenthoods that do provide the procedure. The group promotes other pregnancy resource centers such as Options for Women and Birthright as alternatives.
Most of the Mankato Planned Parenthood clinic’s services fall into either the birth control or STD-testing categories.
Marie Meyer, a Cleveland woman who regularly stands vigil during the 40 Days campaign, accused Planned Parenthood of promoting sexual activity so it can then provide more abortions.
“It’s like a farmer planting a field; they plant their seeds,” she said. “They’re planting seeds by handing out birth control at our expense.” . . .
While [Beverly] Miller and fellow vigil-goer Mary Schweiss expressed optimism courts will take on abortion access, Meyer said so many years of inaction leave her unconvinced it will happen.
“We can’t legislate morality,” she said. “The government didn’t create us. God gave us our freedom, not the government.” . . .
Bluestem suspects she's not clear on the concept of contraception, but what does a simple country blogger know?
According to contributor records at the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board, in 2022 Meyer gave a total of $450.00 in three contributions to the Mortensen, Erik House Committee.
Readers may recall that Mortensen joined the extremely conservative New House Republican Caucus, then parted company with his comrades, as we posted in Tabke: New House Republican Caucus and newer member state rep Erik Mortensen part company and Could letters against Minnesota House GOP members have something to do with Mortensen's exclusion from old Republican caucus?.
She seems nice.
Screenshot: The WATT website front page.
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