A new political action committee run by two former Trump administration officials is marking its territory in a disinformation-rich campaign against the Biden administrations goal of conserving 30% of Americas lands and waters by 2030, known informally as 30x30.
Sagebrush Rebellion PAC , named after the anti-government Sagebrush Rebellion movement that started in the 1970s and sought to remove lands from federal control, quietly surfaced late last year. It has deep connections to Trumpworld and has joined a growing coalition of right-wing organizations and elected officials sowing fear in rural communities with false, conspiratorial claims about how Bidens government is planning to confiscate private property or use deceptive tactics to gain control of private land to meet the 30x30 target.
On its cowboy-heavy website, Sagebrush Rebellion boasts of being made up of grassroots fighters who are not beholden to Washingtons inner circles and says it is committed to gutting incompetent and corrupt leaders from the political process. Its priorities include dismantling federal land management agencies and transferring control of federal lands to the states, as well as a laundry list of fossil fuel-centric energy policies that looks like something pulled directly from an oil and gas trade groups website.
The PACs donations page urges people to help us start a rebellion. It sells T-shirts, mugs and other merchandise that feature a cow skull and the phrase Lets Go Brandin, a cowboy twist on a popular conservative phrase meaning Fuck Joe Biden. Internet archives show that in 2015 the website URL that Sagebrush Rebellion PAC is now using featured a post titled Simple Wisdom of Cliven Bundy, the notorious Nevada rancher who led an armed standoff with federal agents in 2014 over unpaid grazing fees.
As HuffPost reported this story, the PAC and a film company it is working with on a documentary purged their social media accounts of specific posts in the exact order that HuffPost inquired about them.
As of March 31, the fledgling PAC had received only $200 in contributions, according to its most recent filing with the Federal Election Commission. But it recently started forging relationships with some of the biggest players in the anti-30x30 push. The PAC sponsored last months STOP 30x30 Summit in Lincoln, Nebraska. On Twitter, the group has parroted the anti-30x30 movements sweeping, evidence-free claim that the 30x30 target is a federal land grab in disguise.
The group is based in Casper, Wyoming, and led by Rockefeller heiress and Donald Trump loyalist Catharine P. ONeill, the daughter of major Republican donor George ONeill Jr . She worked at both the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development during the Trump administration and is a regular contributor to far-right news outlet Newsmax.
Christian Whiton, a former adviser to the Trump and George W. Bush administrations, is the PACs director of communications .
ONeill and Whiton have both peddled baseless claims about fraud in the 2020 election and questioned the legitimacy of Bidens presidency. On a leaked call with USAID staff two days after Biden was announced the winner, ONeill declared that the election is still happening and the Electoral College has not voted yet. And on Jan. 6, 2021, after a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in an attempt to thwart certification of the 2020 election, ONeill went on Twitter to proclaim her alliance to Trump and condemn those not standing behind him.
Along with sponsoring last months Stop 30x30 Summit, Sagebrush Rebellion PAC has teamed up with an Arizona-based production company, J Infinite Digital Media, to produce some sort of documentary starring the leading figures of the anti-30x30 movement.
In a now-deleted post on Instagram, J Infinite shared pictures of the production company and Sagebrush Rebellion PAC filming at last months event. An amazing production day with @sagebrushrebellion on their latest doc project, read the post, which included pictures of film production and an interview with Margaret Byfield, executive director of American Stewards of Liberty, a fringe right-wing property rights group in Texas that organized the summit and is leading the fight against 30x30. Jackson Carter of Sagebrush Rebellion was tagged in the post.
The post also featured Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), one of the summits keynote speakers, and Utah state Rep. Phil Lyman (R), who was convicted in 2015 of leading anti-federal land protesters on an illegal ATV ride on public lands that were off limits to off-road vehicles. Trump later pardoned Lymans federal misdemeanor conviction.
J Infinite removed the Instagram post within a couple hours of HuffPost contacting Sagebrush Rebellion PAC about it.
Accountable.US, a watchdog group, first alerted HuffPost to Sagebrush Rebellion PAC and its forthcoming documentary project.
When it comes to American Stewards of Liberty, you can almost hear the black helicopters circling, Jordan Schreiber, energy and environment director at Accountable.US, told HuffPost in an email. She noted that the groups leaders have compared 30x30 to Nazi Germany and the Holodomor, a human-caused famine that occurred in Ukraine during Soviet dictator Josef Stalins rule that resulted in the deaths of an estimated 3.9 million people.
This is what we are up against in the fight to preserve American land and water for future generations to enjoy, Schreiber said.
The documentary project appears to be far and away the biggest job this little-known film outfit has landed. A review of J Infinites website indicates its specialty is filming and photographing people shooting and posing with guns. Two of its main clients are tactical training facilities in Arizona, one of which J Infinites owner Jacob Fuchs also works for.
Fuchs seems to have some sort of affiliation with or affinity for the Boogaloo Bois , an often violent far-right, anti-government movement that has warned of and even plotted a future civil war. Members often sport Hawaiian shirts and military-style gear.
Last June, J Infinite released a nearly three-minute, slow-motion video titled Da Bois, featuring Fuchs and two other men in tactical gear shooting assault-style rifles and handguns and fist-bumping to The Chords song Sh-Boom. Vests worn by Fuchs and another man feature patches that read BOOG CREW. Another similar video posted on the companys YouTube channel is titled Boogaloo Crew Pilot.
Two days after the anti-30x30 summit in Nebraska, Sagebrush Rebellion posted a picture on Twitter of what appears to be Fuchs in a Hawaiian shirt with the caption, Behind the scenesstay tuned!
_(720p).jpg)
 OFFICIAL HD MUSIC VIDEO.jpg)
.jpg)
