The truckers convoy camped outside of DC is running on fumes
Category: News & Politics
Via: john-russell • 2 years ago • 26 commentsBy: Kip Coltrin (Raw Story - Celebrating Years of Independent Journalism)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
With the far-right truckers convoy stuck in a perpetual loop around Washington, DC, the leadership has found it necessary to scale back its ambitious demands to rescind emergency COVID orders and hold hearings on government's handling of the pandemic.
Before the convoy made its initial foray around the Capitol Beltway, organizer Brian Brase told an angry crowd gathered at Hagerstown, Md. on March 5 that the convoy would "sit there in their backyard" and "wait until they legitimately drop the state of emergency, they drop the vaccine mandates, and they begin the process of bipartisan investigation… to find out the transparent version of the pandemic's origins, and ask who is responsible for screwing this up so badly."
By Tuesday, when a delegation from the convoy met with Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), Brase indicated he was heartened just to get a meeting with elected representatives and some media coverage.
"I got what I was hoping for," he said. "I got two respectful members of the Senate here, and I got all the media in this room to come and start covering. That's a win for me. That's a win for the People's Convoy. Later today, we have more meetings, and tomorrow's a new day. And the convoy's going to keep rolling around that Beltway until we achieve what our goals are."
Beginning on Sunday with an initial foray that barely made a dent in the Beltway traffic flow, the convoy appears to be diminishing by the day. It peaked on its first day with about 1,200 vehicles, including both rigs and personal vehicles, according to a homeland security official who spoke to Raw Story on condition of anonymity, and dropped to about 500 vehicles on Thursday.
Brase painted a more favorable picture during a speech to supporters on Tuesday. Mocking a reporter from the Daily Beast, he said, "He said 'the Beltway defeated the convoy.' We've doubled in size since that first time we've went around the Beltway."
But despite some reinforcement from the American Truckers Freedom Convoy, an independent effort organized by Kip Coltrin, Brase acknowledged during the nightly meeting on Wednesday that the time away from work and fuel costs are putting a strain on drivers.
"You gotta leave and go back to work? Go do it," he said. "Don't lose everything you have. Many people are losing everything they have to be up here."
The convoy has faced headwinds from two conditions beyond its control. The horrific war in Ukraine has overshadowed the effort. And the sudden lifting of mask mandates across the country took the first demand of the convoy off the table, forcing supporters to recalibrate.
"You know, this isn't just about mandates," Gerald Johnson, a trucker who livestreams on YouTube, told the crowd at Hagerstown Speedway on March 5. "Mandates is just the straw that broke the camel's back."
"It's about control!" a man in the crowd yelled.
"It's about control," Johnson agreed. "You're exactly right. They've been doing it way too long."
Davy Mullennex, a 29-year-old independent truck driver from Colorado who said he was committed to the convoy for the "long haul," also indicated he was not placated by decisions by the federal and state governments to lift masking mandates. Rather than taking the lifting of the mandates as a sign that government and public health officials are responsive to science and people's needs, Mullennex said he sees it as evidence of bad faith.
"They're not acting like this is an emergency," Mullennex told Raw Story on Sunday. "And you have to ask yourself, well, why is that?... I think it's that they're power-drunk, and realize that this is an excellent way for them to push forward leftist, really left-leaning agendas, because that's what they have done in many different areas. I think that that serves their purposes."
Since the departure of the People's Convoy — the main effort organized by Brase — from Adelanto, Calif. on Feb. 23, enthusiasm among prominent far-right figures has continually diminished. On the second day of the convoy, the America Project — a nonprofit whose public face is retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn — withdrew support for the convoy. Patrick Byrne — the former Overstock.com CEO who has pushed the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump, alongside Flynn — said in a video on Feb. 24: "I want to be clear that myself and the America Project are stepping away…. It's not about the organizers of any of the convoys. We know it to be thoroughly and aggressively penetrated by the left. They are licking their chops over this. Really, don't do it."
Leigh Dundas, an anti-vaccination lawyer who aggressively promoted the Trump's effort to overturn the 2020 election, parted ways with the convoy on March 3, the day before it arrived in Hagerstown. And former White House strategist Steve Bannon, who embedded a correspondent and featured almost daily interviews with organizer Maureen Steele as the convoy trekked across the continent, hasn't talked about the convoy on his podcast since Monday.
Ivan Raiklin, an Army Reserves lieutenant colonel who was the first to promote the idea that Vice President Mike Pence should suspend certification of the electoral vote, joined the convoy during its inaugural lap around the Beltway on Sunday. Going live on Telegram, Raiklin suggested convoy leaders enlist the governors of Maryland and Virginia to blockade the District of Columbia and carry out arrests of federal government officials who have been in involved with the pandemic response.
Raiklin's bizarre proposal called on the governors to mobilize the National Guard and state police so that "any federal officer… that has participated in any way in promoting the mandates or the vaccines, the masks… testing, vaccines, what else, folks that are in the [National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control & Prevention], all these different branches of the administrative state that illegally shut down businesses based on their illegal, unconstitutional policies, at this point need to be detained, arrested, put in pre-trial confinement, awaiting the results of their trial."
Raiklin expressed hope that more people would join the convoy in coming days.
"So, you can see here, the Beltway is now just now beginning to be clogged up, and I would expect that more and more folks are going to be on the Beltway in order to make the noose tighter around the Washington, DC federal district," he said.
But Brase and other convoy organizers have shown no inclination to escalate their tactics.
In the meeting with Sens. Cruz and Johnson on Tuesday, Brase emphasized that convoy organizers have previewed their plans the night before each foray to the DC Metropolitan Police, Maryland State Police and Virginia State Police. That night, at the speedway outside of Hagerstown, Brase told the crowd: "We're gonna stay peaceful, law-abiding citizens while stretching our muscles, right?"
As the week has worn on, the grievances expressed by convoy participants have evolved into more general complaints about "politicians" and the media.
Referencing a kerfluffle over an initial stipulation that the convoy delegation wouldn't be allowed to live-stream the meeting with the two senators, Brase said, "What we learned is that even on the right side of the aisle, some just don't care what we have to say. What we learned is that there are plenty of people in office that are way too comfortable with their cushy seats."
And on Sunday, Brase complained about media accounts reporting that "we fizzled out," followed with a broad salvo that included right-wing media.
"So, Fox News, listen up," Brase said. "MSNBC, NBC, CNN and whoever you may be, I think it's probably time you come down here and see for yourself what's really going on, because you're starting to act like the politicians."
With the limitations of the national convoy surrounding Washington, DC becoming apparent, the leadership has begun to downshift to a more dispersed strategy of targeting state capitols.
"I'm gonna tell those in the United States that could not make it to the convoy, but supports us — to those of you that want to do something to help, rally your people to your state capitals now," Brase said on Tuesday. "Now is the time to put the pressure on the state capitols. Right now, while we're here doing our thing, you need to be there doing your thing."
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Bad timing for these folks. The diminshment of the pandemic and the war news from Europe have combined to make their screeching about "freedom" irrelevant to many if not most Americans.
Putin would string them up by wires in Red Square!
We are basically at war, rightly leading the free world, and yet these nunus are wasting diesel fuel?
Probably while simultaneously complaining about the cost of fuel.
Oh, these dummies are still doing... whatever this is?
It’s shocking how redneck-y it gets once you get north of Frederick, MD. Hagerstown is just gross. Then to the east of Hagerstown you have Thurmont, even worse. Though it is home to Camp David, the town itself is filled with Trumpy white trash racists. These people should not be taken seriously.
I didn’t realize that most of these truckers were local Marylanders. The media reports like are from around the country.
I don’t for sure know the composition of the participants, what I do know is that no community south of Hagerstown would ever allow themselves to be used for this purpose. These people would not have chose a location that is 90 minutes from the beltway (on a good day) as a base of operations if they had other options.
Montgomery County doesn't support the right to peaceful assembly?
No way in hell Frederick, Montgomery, or PG County would ever grant a permit for this garbage. This is straight up bad publicity for a potentially disaster to be splashed across national news. Hagerstown is a dying town with nothing to lose and a bunch of grungy hotel rooms.
This non-story doesn't rate national news.
This never made any sense, most trucking companies in the US are not supporting this and are operating as normal.
Running out of fumes but still trying to contribute as much of them as possible to global warming. Those ignoramuses will accomplish no more than they did in Canada, which was to aggravate and earn the ire of 85% of Canadians.
"....begin the process of bipartisan investigation… to find out the transparent version of the pandemic's origins, and ask who is responsible for screwing this up so badly."
IMO the origin is not as big an issue as who is responsible for the trivializing the pandemic and the disregarding of necessary immediate universal measures, no matter how draconian, to contain the spread in the USA of what has become an uncontrollable world record of infections and deaths.
Lol, some SERIOUS CHINA dodging there. Is it even clear the virus originated in China? Just a curious mind here.
The point I made is that the origin fades from importance in the light of American inability to deal with it properly. But you've chosen to deflect reality by making your comment about me rather than the issue. I didn't think I was the topic.
Uh huh, so your leader does not look like Winnie the Poo. Cool. Anything else?
Only a really IGNORANT person, or one who's aim on this site is just to harass other members, wouldn't know that THIS is my leader, whether I like it or not. His FATHER was the BEST leader Canada has ever had during my lifetime.
[deleted]
Indeed, however, you are not from Quebec.
[Deleted]
According to the Québécois I'm a Tête anglaise, which, as you know, is not a compliment.
Comment on Idiot 'Freedom Convoy' Truckers Insult Jews By Blowing Shofars
Red Painter, Crooks and Liars
Sat, 03/12/2022 - 6:24pm
Idiot 'Freedom Convoy' Truckers Insult Jews By Blowing Shofars
A video circulating on social media on Saturday shows a group of truckers from the "Freedom Convoy" blowing curved horns, or what Jews call "shofars." These ancient musical horn are typically made of a ram's horn and are used for Jewish religious purposes. Chabad.org explains the meaning and purpose of a shofar as: "a trumpet made from the horn of a kosher animal with the marrow removed." It is blown during the High Holidays of Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year, which consists of 2 days of religious services) during the month of Elul, and at the end of Yom Kippur to mark the end of the day of fasting. It symbolizes a cry from the soul.
It is beyond sad that people can be so easily manipulated by right wing rhetoric as to indulge in these bizarre actions. They get infiltrated and organized by right wing wealthy donors who send them out on a fools errand. Attention seeking and victimhood put on display with no real goals in mind.
They also open the doors for the real and most dangerous extremists to become involved - like the Charlottesville Nazis or the swastika waver in Ottawa