Anchorage Daily News: Joe Miller's personal police were active duty military

We discussed here the problem with personal police (I'm deliberately ignoring the dressed-up euphemism "private police"). For us small people, we get the pseudo-uniforms from Wackenhut and [insert city name here] Patrol. For the Big Boys, it's pseudo-Secret Service, with the curly-wire earpieces, the cheap suits and flattops, and all the tough-guy trappings of the real thing. Thus with Alaska GOP Senate hopeful (and Tea Bag loonie) Joe Miller and his own personal goon squad.

Now it turns out that two of Miller's fake cops who put Alaska Dispatch editor Tony Hopfinger in handcuffs (until the real cops came to release him) were active duty military. The Alaska Daily News:

Meanwhile, the Army says that two of the guards who assisted in the arrest of the journalist and who tried to prevent two other reporters from filming the detention were active-duty soldiers moonlighting for Miller's security contractor, the Drop Zone, a Spenard surplus store and protection service.

The soldiers, Spc. Tyler Ellingboe, 22, and Sgt. Alexander Valdez, 31, are assigned to the 3rd Maneuver Enhancement Brigade at Fort Richardson. Maj. Bill Coppernoll, the public affairs officer for the Army in Alaska, said the two soldiers did not have permission from their current chain of command to work for the Drop Zone, but the Army was still researching whether previous company or brigade commanders authorized their employment.

Here's Glenn Greenwald:

DoD Directive 1344.10 [pdf] -- governing "Political Activities by Members of the Armed Forces on Active Duty" -- provides: "A member on AD [active duty] shall not: ... [p]articipate in partisan political management, campaigns, or conventions." The legality is the least of the concerns here. That directive exists because it's dangerous and undemocratic to have active-duty soldiers taking an active role in partisan campaigns; having them handcuff journalists on behalf of candidates is so far over that line that it's hard to believe it happened. The real issue, though, is Joe Miller: the fact that he did this and then emphatically defended it reveals the deep authoritarianism of many of these "small-government, pro-Constitution" right-wing candidates. Any American of minimal decency should be repelled by this incident.

Digby has more about Tea Party authoritarians here.

GP