Sheriffs across the country
are panicking over vaccine mandates
that do not exist.
Now, I'm a proponent of vaccine
mandates, but these individuals
are not because they believe in all
sorts of conspiratorial garbage.
But the story actually gets even
worse than that.
Here's Sheriff Mark Lamb of the
Pinal County Sheriff's Department,
this is in Arizona.
Here's what he has to say about
proposed vaccine mandates.
>> Hey folks, Pinal County Sheriff
Mark Lamb here.
With the increase in
private businesses, and even
government organizations, talking
about mandating the vaccine.
I wanted to let you know
that here at
the Pinal County Sheriff's Office
we do not mandate the vaccine.
And as long as I'm your sheriff,
we will never mandate the vaccine.
We believe that your health
choices are yours and yours alone.
So whether you get the vaccine or
don't get the vaccine,
that's your private information.
Here we believe in America and
freedom, and we're going to
continue on with that, God bless.
>> Health choices should be yours
and yours alone when it does not
have to do with a contagious virus
that has killed more than 600,000
Americans in a short period
of time.
Obviously, the point of getting
vaccinated is to keep Americans
safe to prevent them from having to
be hospitalized or from dying as
a result of the coronavirus.
But it also significantly lowers
a vaccinated person's chances of
contracting the virus in the first
place, which means that it lowers
the chances of a vaccinated person
from spreading the virus to others.
But apparently this sheriff is
completely unaware of the fact that
we already have vaccine mandates
that are implemented in public
school systems across the country.
But nonetheless, yes,
it's not Pinal, is it Pinal?
>> Pinal. >> Pinal?
>> I don't know and I don't care.
>> Anyway, so
I wanted to make that correction.
But I also want to note that right
now, no such vaccine mandate in
that area exists.
This is reported by Vice News.
They say on the contrary,
Arizona's governor recently signed
an order blocking local governments
from adopting vaccine mandates.
Now, this is a growing problem
because it's not just about
coronavirus, it's about these rebel
sheriffs who literally say
that they will not enforce
laws that they disagree with.
Lamb is a prominent figure in the
Constitutional Sheriffs Movement,
a quietly growing network of
renegade law officers who believe
God enshrined them with the highest
constitutional authority in the US.
And that they have a special right
to ignore any laws they personally
believe are unconstitutional.
>> Fire them all,
fire them instantly.
>> And it gets worse,
I'll give you more details about
this group in just a minute.
But Cenk, you're chomping at
the bit, go ahead.
>> Yeah, what do you mean, you're
not going to enforce the law?
That's literally your job.
It reminds me of the Muslim cash
register guy, I think it was a case
in Minnesota a long time ago.
And he's like,
I don't want to ring up the bacon
because it's against my religion.
Well, then get another job because
your job involves ringing up bacon,
ham, etc, right?
The lady in Kentucky who didn't
want to give out marriage licenses
to gay couples, well, your job is
to give out marriage licenses.
Now it's legal, you have to give
out marriage licenses.
Well, I don't want to do that job,
great, then you're fired.
Why is this hard?
It's not at all hard.
It's like a doctor saying, well,
I refuse to do surgery.
Well, you're a surgeon.
I know, I refuse to do it.
Great, you're fired,
this is not hard.
So these bunch of jackass sheriffs,
renegade makes them sound cool.
No, they're losers,
they're mental patients.
They think God is talking to
them specifically and
tells them not to do their job.
And the day God says to them,
you have special constitutional
privileges.
You are white and a right winger,
you have special privileges,
God said, did he?
Did he?
I think you belong in
a mental asylum.
They carry badges and guns.
And, of course, you're going to be
shocked to find out that same guy
that we showed you, started warning
about if any Black Lives Matter
activists come around these parts,
they're going to have trouble.
So okay, great,
you're targeting blacks.
You think he's not targeting
Latinos down in Arizona, okay?
But why? Because God
whispered in his ear,
you get to hate other people.
You're so special.
I picked you to be a sheriff.
Ignore the laws, no fire everyone
in that organization instantly.
They're telling you they're not
going to do their job,
it's not at all hard.
Fire them all.
You want to call it cancel culture
and cry about it?
I don't care, do your goddamn job.
Otherwise we're not going to you,
it's our money.
It's taxpayer money and
if you're not going to do it, or
you're going to do it poorly, and
you say, I'm going to target brown
people and black people.
And I'm going to say God whispered
it in my ear.
Shut up and go get another job.
>> No, I mean, the lawlessness
that is supported by sheriff's
departments and local police
officials is pretty incredible.
I mean, look, this is unrelated to
the coronavirus mandate story,
it's also unrelated to the group
that we're talking about here.
But this is not something that's
just indicative of right wing
parts of the country.
Look at what's happening with the
Los Angeles Sheriff's Department
and the fact that for
a very long time now, I mean,
we've known this since the 90s,
there are literal street gang
members within their ranks.
And it's just this open secret
that no one does anything about.
So Google Los Angeles Sheriff's
Department gangs, you'll see
the information about it.
And it just shows you the amount of
lawlessness that takes place within
sheriff's departments and
local police departments.
Now back to the constitutional
sheriffs, because who are they?
Where did this come from and
what do they genuinely believe?
Does this go further than
COVID related matters and
unfortunately the answer is yes.
The Constitutional Sheriffs and
Peace Officers Association was
founded by a former
Arizona Sheriff Richard Mack in
2011, intended as a sheriff-centric
spinoff of, look at that,
another gang, Oath Keepers militia.
Now militia, I think, makes these
groups sound like they're cool when
they're really not.
But these are just right wing gangs
that somehow get treated
differently here in the US.
Mack incorporated many of the ideas
from the anti-government militia,
Posse Comitatus, and sovereign
citizen movements that he'd forge
alliances with over the years, and
formalized them through the
Constitutional Sheriffs Movement.
So this is how this group began and
their influence is pretty
terrifying.
So the influence
of Constitutional Sheriffs Movement
has been especially evident over
the last year as dozens of
sheriffs nationwide,
many of whom are self-identified
adherents of the movement,
defied lockdown orders,
participated in ReOpen rallies.
Refused to enforce temporary
bans on guns at polling places.
This is, of course, during the 2020
general election, and
push 2020 election conspiracies.
>> Yeah.
>> Why are they not fired?
>> So the Sovereign Citizens
Movement has two problems.
Number one, it kills cops.
So here's cops going,
you kill other cops.
Were they liberals or something?
Who cares? Come on, man,
let's form an alliance here,
and I'll get a bunch of sheriffs
to join your side.
Second problem is Sovereign
Citizens Movement is about being
sovereign and not following
the laws of the country, the state,
the locality that you're in.
Well, the job of the sheriff is to
enforce the laws of the local area,
the state, and
they're not doing it.
They're saying we're actively over
here, over here, us,
we're not doing our job haha.
And you give us a position
to enforce the laws,
I'm not going to do it.
I'm going to enforce whatever
the hell I want because I have
right wing privilege.
And the problem,
guys, is that the left wing,
the moderates,
the media, the government otherwise
in this country is so
pathetically weak.
And they enable these insane right
wingers to run roughshod over our
laws, and create anarchy and chaos.
And say, I don't want to enforce
your strict gun laws.
I want power, I hate democracy.
I hate freedom.
If it's your freedom, I hate it.
If it's my freedom to oppress you,
I'm going to get a badge and a gun,
and I'm going to ignore anything
that you tell me to do,
and I'm going to
be a totally lawless vigilantes.
And we tolerate it.
>> Yep.
>> That's insane that we
tolerate it.
That's why I say everybody that's
on that list should instantly
be fired.
They are announcing to you that
they're not going to do their jobs.
Back to Lamb, okay?
So sorry, Ana, on Lamb, he said
on top of that, when he wanted to
attack the Black Lives Matter
protesters, he said he wanted to
form a civilian posse as well.
You're the sheriff, what the hell
do you need a civilian posse for?
That's saying, I suck at my job,
I refuse to do my job and I'd like
others to do my job for me.
>> That's awesome that
the taxpayers in that community
are funding that guy's salary,
as he just openly and transparently
says that he will not enforce laws
that he disagrees with.
And that he's going to engage with
right wing gang members.
In fact, he's part of this
right wing gang.
I mean, it just blows my mind,
it's totally fine, totally fine.
I'm seeing a lot of Glenn Greenwald
adjacent, former left wingers,
I don't know what they are now,
scaremongering about crime in
the country.
Which to be fair,
crime has gone up, but
they're talking about lawlessness
when it comes to poor people.
They don't ever talk about
lawlessness when it comes to people
in power and this is what we're
talking about, right?
This is lawlessness among people in
positions of power that just goes
unnoticed, or if it is noticed,
they don't face any ramifications
or consequences for it.
I'll give you another example.
And again, this is all brazen,
it's all out in the open,
it's overt.
It's not like they're secretly
conspiring in any way.
Earlier this summer, Sheriff Bob
Songer of the Klickitat County,
Washington Department, who has
close ties to the Constitutional
Sheriffs Movement, threatened to
arrest any state officials who
tried to enforce COVID-19
restrictions in his jurisdiction.
>> The state troopers should have
gone in very heavily armed, and
I would hate for there to be
an actual armed conflict.
But these guys are super dangerous.
And parts of this movement,
as I've said before,
has killed law enforcement.
They should go in very prepared and
make sure that they arrest that man
threatening to kill other people
and not follow the law.
Your job is to follow the law and
enforce the law,
you say you won't do it.
This is so obvious.
All right one more thing
about Lamb.
He's doing this thing, he's calling
himself the American sheriff.
This is all about marketing,
it's all about money making
scams on top of the lunacy,
right, on top of the law breaking.
So he's charging 4.99 a month to
subscribe to the American Sheriff
Network, and then they show them
presumably kicking ass.
God knows what illegal things that
they're doing on that
network, okay?
I don't know,
it's a literal question.
I don't know where the 4.99 is
going to.
If it's going to his pocket,
who authorized it?
Even if it's going to the sheriff's
department in general,
who authorized you to start
a company, a little racket on
the side using taxpayer money?
You're supposed to be actually
doing law enforcement.
People that are getting mugged,
robbed, raped,
whatever in your county, you don't
even give a damn about them.
You're like how am I going to
make money?
I'm not going to enforce law.
Well, God whispered in my ear I
should make all the money.
Give me the money,
give me the money.
And you're going to take taxpayer
money and then you're going to set
up this goddamn racket?
Because the thing that conservative
leaders have realized is their
followers will believe anything.
And they'll let him
break the law and then
give them money to break the law.
So they're taking advantage of
people who they think are schmucks.