The Dictatorship

The dangerous truth I learned after I finally escaped the leader of the Oath Keepers

Published

1 year ago

February 2, 2025

The dangerous truth I learned after I finally escaped the leader of the Oath Keepers

In February 2018, my children and I escaped what I felt was a very dangerous marriage. I secretly packed the last of my children’s important documents into my oldest son’s truck while two of my kids were ducked down onto the floorboards. My heart was beating so hard, it was almost all I could hear. The next 30 seconds would change everything, one way or another.

As we pulled away, my then-husband ran out of the house, but then stopped. “Pick up a steak on your way back,” he called out. And that was it. Two years of planning led to that one moment.

As is often the case, things didn’t start out that way.

Even on our best days, when Stewart was at his most romantic, just the slightest curve could change everything.

The day I first spotted the now infamous founder of the Oath Keepers, Stewart Rhodes, he wasn’t clad in camouflage or a black cowboy hat. With still two good eyes, he wasn’t outfitted with his iconic leather eye-patch. Nor was he stirring up a sea of followers with a speech that ended with a fist pump and a resounding shout of “Hoo-uh!” Instead, in the early spring of 1991, he was shuffling awkwardly with his dance teacher, mouthing, “Cha-cha, 1-2-3, cha-cha, 1…” to himself in a Las Vegas dance studio as he tried to keep up with her steps. I noticed him immediately because it was the first time in a week that a student under 65 years old had been inside the strip mall dance studio plunked between Mountain View Tax Preparers and The Kopper Keg, where I was then training to be a dance instructor. Later, when we were properly introduced, he bought me a soda in lieu of a beer (I was still a teenager) from the Elks Lodge bar counter and we danced a rumba together.

As our relationship progressed, we made a lot of plans for the future. There was little sign of the person he would become; I had no way of knowing the man I was with would be convicted of seditious conspiracy and spend time in prison for orchestrating crowds to storm the U.S. Capitol; that newly-elected President Donald Trump would then commute his 18-year sentence and release him and he’d return to Capitol Hill praising the new Trump era.

Back then, on our days off, we would scan the newspapers for open houses and visit several in a day in our best clothes with fancy coffees in hand. At 25, he was only a couple years out of the Army after a parachuting accident had abruptly ended his military career, and he was still rethinking his life path. He told me all about his visions for the future that included college and maybe even graduate school.

He often suggested it in a way that made me feel guilty — that he didn’t have the supportive family that I did, that life wasn’t as easy for him.

I felt completely swept up. In retrospect, there was plenty in our relationship to give me pause. Even on our best days, when Stewart was at his most romantic, just the slightest curve could change everything. Knocking a drink over on the table was enough to “ruin the whole day.” He could go from laughing to slamming things around with no warning at all. And I would be left trying to make some sort of sense of it all.

Eventually, we decided the only way we could really move forward with our plans was for me to support him as he attended school. I dropped out of college, quit the job that I loved as a dance instructor and stopped attending time consuming dance auditions and competitions. I began working as an exotic dancer to pay for our rent as well as many of his hobbies like martial arts and nights out with his friends. I thought if I could give him all the love and support that he claimed to have missed out on growing up, that I could somehow heal him. He explained to me that he only lost his temper in the way that he did because he wasn’t on the path he was meant to be on. It was all just a sort of “restlessness,” as he called it, that he only experienced when he wasn’t on track. I was impressed that he seemed to feel such a sense of destiny.

He suggested starting an organization, something he had talked about a lot over the years. I had a glimmer of hope that this could be it; this could finally be the missing piece that made him whole.

He graduated Summa Cum Laude from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and after a stint working in Washington, D.C. for congressman Ron Paul in 1998, he graduated Yale Law School in 2004 just before turning 40. By the time we left New Haven for his clerkship with the Arizona Supreme court, we had three small children. But I was still waiting for his yet undefined “restlessness” to subside. His constant search for purpose meant we moved a lot. I counted 20 moves in as many years, several of them cross-country.

Finally, he claimed to have found his purpose. He was going to be a small-town litigator. Montana was going to be our new home. It was short lived, however, and just a year and half later we were back in Las Vegas, where he briefly worked for a construction defect law firm.

It was around this time that he suggested starting an organization, something he had talked about a lot over the years. I had a glimmer of hope that this could be it; this could finally be the missing piece that made him whole. But instead of healing his restlessness, it seemed to only embolden the worst in him.

Oath Keepers President Stewart Rhodes at the shop in Newburgh, N.Y., on June 2, 2020.Allyse Pulliam / USA Today

His big idea was everything he thought it would be and more. His group immediately went viral within the 2009 Libertarian blog-o-sphere. He had had this ability to draw people around him for as long as I knew him. Throughout the years, he was always instructing classes. The topic mattered little — anything from women’s self-defense to the U.S. Constitution — but it always resulted in a cult following of hanger on-ers. People would encircle him while he talked on and on. Six p.m. classes turned into 10 p.m. parking lot lectures after the staff flickered the lights to usher us outside. The parking lot tour would often shift over to Denny’s until 2 a.m., with the kids and I nodding off at the table or sleeping in the car while we waited. Even after he climbed into the car to drive home, he’d roll down the window, the last of his audience leaning on the car door while he carried on to the last.

Oath Keepers at its height had 40,000 dues-paying members (many of them police officers and politicians according to a leaked membership list) making it the largest militia in modern American history. Stewart held his followers’ attention with his uncanny ability to elicit their emotions in the same mesmerizing way many cult leaders do. He often focused on disillusioned veterans who were hungry for purpose and to regain a sense of mission they had lost. Oath Keepers gave them not just a brotherhood, but a task: “One more tour of duty, because your oath never expired!” as Stewart often told them. He ramped them up with his fervent speeches and then set them loose to further his own goals. Several of his schemes made national news, the 2014 Bundy Ranch stand-off being just one.

In January 2021, my children and I watched from afar as the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys and several smaller groups joined forces to storm the Capitol (Stewart himself did not enter the Capitol that day). We saw the kind of chaos that can be unleashed when more than one carnival barker works together toward a symbiotic con.

After the 2024 election, with Trump granting clemency for Stewart and many others who participated in the insurrection on Jan. 6, it might appear to some that their star is rising again. But I’m not convinced.

If there is one useful lesson I learned from 30 years with someone like Stewart Rhodes, it’s that false promises and the smoke and mirrors magic tricks to woo crowds are not something that can last. Real change requires more than just an emotional surge. Without substance, the fervor always ends eventually. And even the most skilled of flim-flam men lose the faith of the crowd when the house lights click back on. Today, I’m only looking ahead. I work full time, have taken a few college courses and have been slowly piecing together a memoir. I don’t know what the future holds, but, like many, I’m here to face it the best I can. And I hope that when the dust finally settles, we can all move forward.

Tasha Adams

Tasha Adams was married to Stewart Rhodes for three decades before leaving him, with her six children. She is currently working on a memoir.

The Dictatorship

US tariff hikes linked to foreign forced labor claims anger trading partners

Published

5 hours ago

July 25, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

US tariff hikes linked to foreign forced labor claims anger trading partners

BANGKOK (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump’s latest set of tariffs drew immediate objections from America’s trading partners including China and Japan, with Australia’s trade minister slamming them as “completely unjustified” on Friday.

The administration announced tariffs of 10% to 12.5% on 60 economies late Thursday, saying the countries had failed to adequately enforce a ban on goods made with forced labor.

The new tariffs took effect just as stopgap levies Trump imposed after a stinging defeat at the Supreme Court expired at 12:01 a.m. Friday.

Countries object to what they call unfounded labor claims

Australian Trade Minister Don Farrell rejected claims linking Australia, a major exporter of beef, gold and copper, to modern slavery and raising the tariff on its exports to the U.S. to 12.5% from the 10% level imposed after Trump’s “Liberation Day” hikes last year.

“We believe that amongst all of the countries in the world Australia does take the issue of slavery, modern slavery, seriously, and will continue to do that,” Farrell told reporters in Adelaide.

Australia believes the higher tariffs are “completely unjustified and we will continue to lobby the United States Trade Representative to remove all tariffs on Australian goods,” Farrell said.

New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said the tariffs on his country, also subject to a 12.5% import duty, were “extremely disappointing,” unjustified and harmful to trade.

A U.S. investigation serving as the basis for the tariffs did not provide meaningful evidence to support allegations of forced labor.

“Tariffs are not the way — they drive up costs and uncertainty for businesses,” he wrote on X.

European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas questioned the U.S. stance in comments on Channel News Asia.

“If you compare our labor laws to the ones of the United States, I mean we have, people have paid vacations, we have very good conditions, labor conditions for our employees, so it’s not really grounded,” Kallas said.

Also facing a 12.5% tariff, Singapore’s Ministry of Trade and Industry said it would “continue to engage the USTR (United States Trade Representative) to explore options.”

Some hope to forestall the new tariffs

Japan likewise protested the 12.5% tariff imposed on its exports, noting Tokyo had been reassured by the Trump administration that there would be no more tariffs on top of an earlier agreement on a 10% U.S. import duty.

“Our understanding is both sides are still committed to that,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara said.

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“It is regrettable that the measure imposes tariffs on the grounds of non-existence of measures banning imports of goods made by forced labor, even though Japan’s industry and trade are in line with international rules,” Kihara said.

South Korea’s trade ministry said the announcement eased some uncertainty over U.S. trade policy, but noted that a Section 301 investigation into alleged Korean excess production continues.

The combined duties on South Korean exports should not exceed 15%, the ministry said in a statement.

Thailand noted it is subject to the new 12.5% tariff by the U.S. under the forced labor provision, but the measure exempts around 2,120 items, representing more than half the value of Thai goods exported to the U.S.

China opposes unilateral tariffs in ‘all forms’

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it “opposes all forms of unilateral tariffs” in response to the new 12.5% tariffs.

“Tariff wars and trade wars do not serve any parties’ interests,” ministry spokesman Lin Jian said at a press conference.

Trade tensions have clouded relations between China and the U.S., two of the world’s biggest economies, as Trump’s hefty “Liberation Day” tariffs resulted in a sharp drop in Chinese exports to the U.S.

Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who agreed to set up new boards of trade and investment at their mid-May meeting in Beijing, are expected to meet again in September.

Some Chinese exporters say, however, the impacts are limited as the latest U.S. tariffs on China remain at lower levels than last year’s rates, which were initially 34%.

“Of course it’d be best if they (the tariffs) are not there,” said Richard Chan, manager of Golden Arts Gifts & Decor, which manufactures Christmas trees and decorations in the southern Chinese city of Dongguan and supplies globally to those including Walmart.

Golden Arts’ share of sales to the U.S., however, already have fallen as U.S. tariffs added more uncertainty. They have pivoted more to Europe, which now accounts for roughly 70% of their sales, Chan said.

The latest import duties might stick

Wendy Cutler, a former senior U.S. trade official, said the latest round of tariffs involved “few surprises” since they range just between 10% and 12.5%.

The U.S. Trade Representative’s office spent four months investigating the basis for those tariffs to meet legal requirements under Section 301 of the U.S. Trade Act of 1974.

“Time will tell whether the third attempt to impose tariffs is the charm and this action stands up to legal challenges,” said Cutler, senior vice president of the Asia Society Policy Institute.

These duties are less likely than earlier ones to be overruled by U.S. courts, she said.

Further tariffs may be coming in the fall related to alleged structural excess capacity of trading partners, she noted.

Experts say these tariffs may be less disruptive

Washington has generally tended to engage in increased trade friction, William Bratton of BNP Paribas said in a research note Friday.

“On the positive side, however, these tariffs are lower than the earlier (Emergency Powers Act) ‘reciprocal’ tariffs and appear to exempt a substantial proportion of Asia’s current trade flows with the U.S.,” he said.

The Trump administration has made tariff exceptions, however, including imported goods that the U.S. does not produce, Cutler noted.

“This should reduce the impact of these duties. Nevertheless, they will contribute to higher prices both for end consumers and businesses importing inputs and machinery,” she said.

Immediate pushback, legal and political

There was immediate pushback, both legally, and politically.

The Liberty Justice Center, a libertarian advocacy group that successfully challenged earlier Trump tariffs, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Court of International Trade in New York, challenging the double-digit import taxes that Trump imposed Friday.

The group called the new tariffs a pretext to allow Trump to maintain a wall of tariffs around the U.S. economy after the Supreme Court struck down big global taxes he’d imposed last year.

“The administration allowed one global tariff to expire and immediately replaced it with another under a different statute,” said Sara Albrecht, chair of the center. “Changing the statute doesn’t change the law. Every tariff authority has limits, and every administration must respect them.”

Her group represented businesses that successfully challenged Trump’s 2025 global tariffs.

Rep. Linda Sanchez, a California Democrat questioned the reasons for the latest slew of tariffs.

“If he was serious, he would not be applying the same tariff rate to China, one of the worst forced labor abusers in the world, as he does to countries like Australia,” she said. “Then again, unlike China, Australia doesn’t manufacture any Trump corporation products.”

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., said Americans will be the ones paying for the new tariffs.

“Instead of continuing his disastrous tariff scheme, the president must put the American people first and revoke these harmful policies that are making everyday Americans’ lives flat-out unaffordable,” Gillibrand said. “At home in New York and across the country, people are struggling, and they need relief.”

___

Chan reported from Hong Kong. Associated Press writers Tong-hyung Kim in Seoul, South Korea, Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo and Eileen Ng in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Grant Peck in Bangkok and Ken Moritsugu in Beijing, as well as AP Economics Writer in Washington, and AP Business Writer Michelle Chapman in New York, contributed to this report.

The Dictatorship

You asked, Joe answered

Published

19 hours ago

July 25, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Christmas. 24, 2026, 12:14 PM EDT

Thirty-eight thousand people packed Fenway on Wednesday night — the biggest crowd in a decade. The Red Sox lost. Such a Red Sox thing to do, but as I’ve always said to my long-suffering Sox friends, baseball season doesn’t really begin until after the All-Star break. This year’s Red Sox team proved that again, with a dismal spring and early summer. But a historic run in July put them back in the pennant race.

Baseball is life. A long season. Head down. Learn from your mistakes. Burn the bridge behind you. Win the next tonight. Take the next series. And then focus on the game after that.

As I told my daughter as she went off to college, don’t get overwhelmed at everything coming at you at once. Eat the elephant one bite at a time.

The Sox play the Blue Jays tonight. Tomorrow doesn’t matter. One bite at a time.

Here are some fun events you can have a taste of this weekend:

In Queens, MoMA PS1’s “Warm Up” returns today, the courtyard dance party that’s been a summer institution in Long Island City for more than two decades. Six Fridays, all summer long.

In Newport, the Folk Festival takes over Fort Adams this weekend, with three days of music at the grounds that gave us Bob Dylan’s historic move of going electric and Joni Mitchell’s return to the stage. An American original since 1959, and it still sells out for a reason.

In the nation’s capital, Poet’s Homecoming wraps this weekend with its “Big Old Kids Party”: part poetry brunch, part indie wellness fair, all of it free.

In Chicago, Double Dutch Fest takes over South Shore all weekend with jump-rope workshops, breakdancing and old-school lawn games. Seasoned or still learning the ropes, everyone’s welcome.

In New Orleans, the X Games take over the Caesars Superdome for the first-ever XGL Championship. Three days of skateboarding, BMX and Moto X, with Metro Boomin and JID closing out the nights.

Out west, it’s San Francisco Marathon weekend. Check the route map, whether you’re running, cheering or just trying to cross the street. I pray for the runners’ joints that Lombard Street is not on the route.

In Miami, the county is holding its final Adopt-A-Tree event tomorrow at FIU’s Biscayne Bay campus — firebush, pigeon plum, cinnamon bark, all free, all yours.

And wherever you are, it’s National Tequila Day. If life hands you lemons, skip the lemonade. Add salt and tequila. Here are 10 cocktails to shake up at home.

MAILBAG

Do you believe that this administration will move forward with ground troops in Iran where we will experience another Vietnam war?

— Paul C., New Bedford, Massachusetts

Paul, there is no way to predict exactly what this president will do. But everyone close to him is certain that he will not commit ground troops to Iran.

When you look at his approval rating on the war, and especially the economy, the last thing Republicans want Donald Trump to do is double down. The sight of more Americans coming home in coffins is a tragedy this country does not want to endure. That said, the president has few good options and no one can predict exactly how this will end.

Please explain where we get all these billions of dollars Trump is spending like a drunken sailor, while taking food and healthcare away from Americans. I worry we are borrowing it and paying a very high interest rate.

—Linda K., Spring Grove, Illinois

Linda, more Americans need to be concerned about the issue you have raised here.

The national debt is about to hit $40 trillion. When I entered Congress a generation ago, it was at $4 trillion. That was even too much for the members who came into the House of Representatives with me.

We fought hard over our first few years to balance the budget for the first time in a generation. We went on to balance it for four years in a row.

That is the only time it has happened in 100 years.

Today, the Republican Party keeps giving tax cuts to billionaires and trillionaires, passing out corporate welfare breaks to multinational corporations, spending your tax dollars on bloated and outdated weapons programs, and are now paying more of your tax dollars for interest on the U.S. debt than for America’s national defense. Because of the GOP’s failure, this is an existential crisis that needs to be addressed at once by both political parties in Washington, D.C.

Because gifts to the president require Congress’ approval, does that mean that next year’s Congress can take away the plane and other excessive gifts in the future?

— Mike B., Arlington, Texas

If Democrats take control of Congress, they need to work first on issues involving affordability. But they also must look at their options and address the unprecedented grift and corruption that has taken place in the first two years of the Trump administration. The plane from Qatar should be at the top of the list, but they should also work to pass legislation that will stop all future presidents, and their families from benefiting financially because of their positions of power in Washington, D.C.

Not only have many of these sleazy schemes warped American foreign policybut they have also undermined citizens’ confidence in their own government.

That must change.

You and Roger Bennett complained about how the U.S. doesn’t have a good men’s soccer team. We have had amazing women’s soccer teams. What are we doing right with women’s soccer that could be applied to men’s soccer as far as training up the young?

— Carol P., Denver, Colorado

Carol, that is a great question, and neither Roger nor I have the answer. It is something we’ve been discussing since the end of the 2010 World Cup, and we agree that one of the biggest problems is our approach to developing players.

In Europe, talented, young soccer players are paid to join an organization and develop their game. In America, parents usually pay tens of thousands of dollars — and travel long distances — to have their sons participate in a higher level of competition.

The goal for most young players in the U.S. is to make a college soccer team and have their education paid for by colleges like Tufts, Pepperdine, or Dartmouth. In Europe, young players train with the goal of joining clubs like Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, and Liverpool.

By the time they reached the World Cup, the gap becomes painfully obvious. That said, this U.S.A. squad was easily the best I’ve seen. They should have gone further in the tournament, but their exciting run got tangled up in politics. And yes, like manyI blame Donald Trump’s clumsy intervention in the red card controversy with getting our players off their game during the first half of the Belgium match.

We’ll get ‘em next time.

Former Rep. Joe Scarborough, R-Fla., is co-host of MS NOW’s “Morning Joe” alongside Mika Brzezinski — a show that Time magazine calls “revolutionary.” In addition to his career in television, Joe is a two-time New York Times best-selling author. His most recent book is “The Right Path: From Ike to Reagan, How Republicans Once Mastered Politics — and Can Again.”

The Dictatorship

Friday’s Campaign Round-Up, 7.24.26: Mark Sanford launches comeback bid in South Carolina

Published

19 hours ago

July 25, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Friday’s Campaign Round-Up, 7.24.26: Mark Sanford launches comeback bid in South Carolina

Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.

* In South Carolina’s Republican Senate primarythe late Sen. Lindsey Graham’s younger sister, Darline Graham, is an appointed incumbent seeking a full term with President Donald Trump’s blessing, but she hasn’t cleared the GOP field ahead of the state’s Aug. 11 special primary.

Reps. Russell Fry and Ralph Norman have launched campaigns for the seat, and this week, a third high-profile contender threw his hat into the ring: Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford joined the race Thursday afternoon.

Sanford brings one of the more unusual resumes of any politician in the country. He served a few terms in Congress in the late 1990s, before serving two terms as South Carolina’s governor — a tenure that included the infamous “Appalachian Trail” sex scandal. The Republican nevertheless returned to Congress for six more years before losing in a GOP primary in which he was accused of being insufficiently loyal to Trump.

Sanford then lost an ill-fated 2020 presidential campaign, before launching a congressional comeback bid earlier this year, which only lasted a few weeks. Now, evidently, the South Carolinian is launching yet another comeback bid.

* In Georgiaa new bipartisan poll from AARP found Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff with a relatively comfortable lead over Republican Rep. Mike Collins, 52% to 43%.

* Speaking of the Peach Statethe same AARP poll found former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms with a smaller lead over Republican Rick Jackson, 48% to 46%, in Georgia’s gubernatorial race.

* In Michigan’s closely watched U.S. Senate raceformer Republican Rep. Mike Rogers held a recent private call with supporters in which he said his candidacy will be in “pretty good shape” if Democrats nominate former public health official Abdul El-Sayed in an Aug. 4 primary. “I think we’ll do well if he in fact is the nominee,” Rogers added.

* In Florida’s gubernatorial raceRepublican Rep. Byron Donalds just received a major financial boost from billionaire megadonor Ken Griffin, who’s investing $10 million in support of the congressman’s candidacy.

* As if gubernatorial nominee Victor Marx weren’t already one of the nation’s most controversial statewide candidates, the Colorado Secretary of State’s office is now seeking penalties against the candidate for accepting illegal campaign contributions.

* And as MS NOW’s Jordan Rubin explained this week“A new court ruling approving Tennessee’s congressional map that dilutes Black voting power is the latest example of how the Supreme Court’s GOP-appointed majority is helping Republicans win elections.”

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”