Transcription
Welcome back to the channel, everybody. And today, we're going to talk about a story that a lot of you have reached out to me yesterday about to cover. And that is the recent story of the active duty Air Force officer, Major Jason Watson, who was arrested for standing on the Capitol steps, holding that sign, and calling for Donald Trump and JD Vance to be impeached for their unconstitutional actions in Iran.
Now, what I'm not here to do in this video is give you my subjective feelings about how I feel about this as a veteran or anything like that. I'm going to walk you through the actual laws in the UCMJ, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and we're going to find out, did he actually do anything illegal that should have gotten him arrested for this? And spoiler, it's going to turn out no. No, he didn't. But it's very important for us to actually understand the actual law and the UCMJ behind all of this. That way, you can go forward and talk about this intelligently as well. Because MAGA is going to let you know that yes, this guy is treasonous. Throw him away for life because MAGA loves authoritarian governments and loves being treaded on me. Yes, tread on me, daddy, as MAGA likes to say.
Now, in this video, it's also going to be very important because I'm going to walk you through the big differences between active duty and veterans, what they're allowed to do protesting, in uniform, out of uniform, and also the differences between commissioned officers and enlisted and what they're allowed to do with protesting. Okay, all this is very, very important. So, you will leave this video with a great understanding of this actual situation. So, that's what we're talking about in the video. Don't forget to like, comment, subscribe. Helps the channel. Follow us on Patreon. Grab some American Only merch for the summer.
And quick announcement, guys. We're going to be going live one hour early tonight at 4:00 PM Pacific with a great panel of my buddies. Yes, all the dudes that have been covering the Charlie Kirk situation, Matt from Trigger Start, Danks, Jesse on Fire, etc. And we are basically going to recap the entire Charlie Kirk case so we can understand the actual objective facts on it heading into that big pre-hearing trial Monday, which, by the way, we will be live streaming the entire thing. All right, so make sure to check us out tonight for that great panel.
Now, let's jump into it. Let's talk about it. First thing we got to do, we got to take a look at what Major Jason Watson actually did and figure out, did he break the law? Did he break the Uniform Code of Military Justice? Let's do it. So, first things first, let's listen to his speech and see what he actually had to say.
>> Jason Paul Watson, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. That I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same. That I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I'm about to enter. So help me God. When the President of the United States orders military action against foreign countries absent an emergency scenario where American interests are under imminent dire threat, as was done with Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran. That's an unconstitutional usurpation of Congress's authority and a violation of the War Powers Clause. These violations resulted in the deaths of 13 service members and injuries of hundreds more. For this, the President and Vice President must be impeached, convicted, and removed. >>
So that was pretty much it. That was his speech. So, what did he do there? He recited his oath. He objectively laid out the unconstitutional behavior by this administration regarding going to war in Iran and Venezuela. And then called for the impeachment based off of the breaches of the Constitution. Okay, so that's all he did. And then what he did was stood here peacefully and silently with this sign. All right, so there you go. Stood there silently and peacefully in front of the Capitol, in front of the guardrails there, uh, with a sign that says, "Impeach, Convict, Remove."
Now, let me debunk some MAGA talking points. People who don't know anything about the UCMJ that are just spewing out of their [ __ ] mouths because they're idiots. So, these are things you're going to hear. You're going to hear, "You are not allowed to protest in uniform as an active duty soldier." That is fundamentally not true. And I'll walk you through the actual UCMJ to that here in a second. You're going to hear, "Soldiers cannot call for the impeachment of the president." That is also not true. Then you're going to hear, "Well, he was arrested for protesting in a restricted area." Which is actually what he was arrested for. And we are gonna go ahead and debunk that one as well because the President of the United States, Donald Trump, has already set the precedent that that is not true as well. I'll walk you through that.
So, first thing we need to do is look at the actual UCMJ on how it regulates and guides this specific behavior by active duty commissioned officers. Let's take a look. All right. So, here we go. Here's the actual guiding and regulating documents for exactly this situation, which is Article 88 of the UCMJ, which forbids commissioned officers, and the language here is very, very important, guys, and I'll walk you through it, from using contemptuous words against specific civilian leaders. That means disrespectful rhetoric, as in, uh, you can't call Donald Trump a fat, disgusting pedophile. That would be off-limits. Protected officials include the President, Vice President, Congress, Secretary of Defense, among others. The maximum penalty includes a dismissal, officer dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and up to one year in confinement. But we got to see how this actually works, okay? Who it actually applies to. And this is where I was telling you there's a difference between active duty, veteran. There's a difference between commissioned and non-commissioned officers. So, Article 88 specifically and only targets commissioned officers. Enlisted personnel cannot be charged under Article 88, though they may face other charges like disrespectful or conduct unbecoming charges. But again, this is a commissioned officer, Major Jason Watson, right? Who's protected? Again, we just talked about that. But this is the most important part of the article. So, you have what's called protected speech because, yes, active duty officers in uniform still have protected speech versus contempt. The law is not a ban on political discourse. Officers are allowed to vote, contribute to campaigns, and engage in political debates. However, the language must not cross into contempt, meaning words that bring protected officials into open ridicule or disrespect. Aka, you can't call Donald Trump a fat, disgusting pedophile. But what you can do is criticize his behavior for breaching the US Constitution and engaging in illegal and unconstitutional war. That is 100% fine and protected speech, even under Article 88 of the UCMJ.
MAGA doesn't understand that, but now you do. And just as important, the exception, adverse criticism in the course of a regular political discussion, even if strongly expressed, that's exactly what we just watched, is not chargeable as a violation. However, intentionally circulating contemptuous publications or stating them in front of military subordinates aggravates the offenses. He did none of the above. Okay? So, it's very important for us to understand that he breached nothing in the UCMJ as a commissioned officer based off of what he did there.
What you'll also hear people say though is, "Well, you can't do it in uniform." That is also not true. What you cannot do in uniform is engage in partisan political discourse. So, what I can't do is go to a Democrat rally and talk [ __ ] about the Republican party as an active duty soldier in uniform. What he most certainly can do and is protected to do is engage in non-partisan political discourse, which is exactly what he just did. There was nothing political. You have people on the far right and the far left that both agree with exactly what he said about Donald Trump in the Iran war. So, it is not partisan, which means he is not breaching any UCMJ here.
Now, let's talk about what he was actually arrested for, which was protesting in a restricted area. Because the US government and the military knows that he didn't breach any UCMJ. So, they're not going to try to charge him for that. They're going to get him on something like this. Now, what is the big problem with that? Well, he is peacefully and silently protesting in front of the US Capitol. And if we go back about six years, did we forget about this? Now, you remember this small peaceful protest that was January 6th? And guys, I don't really care if you thought this was an insurrection. You thought it was a protest. You thought they did nothing wrong. You thought they're all treasonous. None of that matters. What matters was the precedent set afterwards by the US President for all of the people who were arrested for protesting at the January 6th US Capitol or riot, whatever you want to call it. I don't really care. It doesn't matter. What matters is all of those people who were arrested and charged were pardoned by President Trump. They were pardoned for protesting in front of the US Capitol. So, what we have done here is set the precedent that protesting in front of the US Capitol should not be a criminal offense according to President Donald J. Trump. Now, do you think President Trump is going to pardon this specific officer? I doubt it. But again, to my point, you can't really pardon thousands of January 6th protesters and say that this guy somehow did something more illegal than they did. That's not how any of this works.
Now, this is not even the first type of thing that we've seen this type of thing out of the Trump administration going after veterans. You remember this Sergeant Brian McInness, who had his arm literally snapped in half for protesting during a congressional hearing?
>> Brian, after you broke your arm protesting in US Congress, they made you resign from your job. And how's your arm, buddy? >> Your arm is healing up. I intended my protest to be standing for saving people's lives, which is priority number one for firefighters. So, I thought I was in line with what firefighting represented. The city of Raleigh didn't see it that way. So, I'm sad to no longer be serving the community in this way, but I'm determined to march forth fighting foreign influence in our government and bringing America back to the American people. >>
So, not only did Brian have his arm snapped in half, but he actually was fired from his job as a firefighter in Raleigh, North Carolina for protesting. H, that doesn't seem great, does it? But again, MAGA absolutely [ __ ] hates our veterans. They've shown that.
Now, keep in mind, this is who he was criticizing. This was two days ago.
>> Sometimes had leaders who would ask you all to go to war, but would not give you a clear mission on the other end. And one of the reasons why I'm proudest of what the President of the United States has done over these last 18 months is because when he has asked you to go to war, he has given you a defined mission. He's asked you to go and accomplish it. And most importantly, he's given you the tools. >>
Yes, I know that almost feels like an Onion article. Just the most satire sarcasm [ __ ] you've ever seen in your life. JD Vance claiming that this president gave you clear and defined strategic objectives regarding the war in Iran, which is hilarious because they haven't been able to give us a single strategic objective since the beginning of this [ __ ] conflict. And keep in mind, we have committed vast amounts of war crimes, objective war crimes in this war, from, I don't know, bombing a little girl's elementary school with two Tomahawk missiles, killing nearly 200 little girls, to bombing bridges and civilian roadways and civilian infrastructure. So, yeah, again, the things he said, Major Watson, were 100% accurate and true, and he was allowed to say them in uniform. It's the way it goes. Sorry. I know MAGA doesn't like that, but that's the way the UCMJ works.
Now, I want to show you something very bizarre and concerning. Now, I decided to type in Article 88 UCMJ into Chat GPT just to see what it would come back and say because again, they like to manipulate these things to work around political things that are going on. And so, as you can see here, this is all I typed. Article 88 UCMJ, which again, this should cause no issues at all. This is legal doctrine, right? Well, check this out. Chat GPT says, "Article 88 of the UCMJ is titled Contempt Towards Officials. It applies only to commissioned officers, not enlisted personnel." Then it says, "The statute states any commissioned officer who uses contemptuous words against the President, the Vice President, Congress, Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of a military department, blank." It stopped. Well, this is a definition. Well, then it gives you an error message and it says, "This content can't be shown because it may conflict with our guidelines." What could possibly conflict with Chat GPT's guidelines simply asking to state part of the UCMJ doctrine? And again, I tried it again. "Give me the entire article." And this time, it can't get anything past "any commissioned officer who uses contemptuous words against the President, the Vice President." Then it stops and gives the same error message. I have literally never seen Chat GPT come back with that message at all. But in this case, just simply asking for it to show me the UCMJ that regulates and guides commissioned officers in uniform protesting, it somehow can't let anybody know. And I wonder if that's because the government doesn't want you to know the actual statutes and the law. H, again, I don't know. But that is awfully, awfully bizarre, isn't it?
All right. So, I know I told you I wouldn't give you my subjective opinion, but I'm going to give it at the end anyway. Now that we actually know the actual laws and guidelines in the UCMJ, and that he, in fact, did not breach them. That's not my opinion. That is objective fact, and the documents are right there for you to see. Here's my opinion. I, for a long time, have always been somebody that just is not a big fan of protesting in uniform. It feels performative. It feels theatrical. It feels self-serving in a lot of ways. And a lot of that is because when you're in uniform, you are representing the United States military. The United States military is not representing you. However, I have sort of changed my opinion on this a little bit because Donald Trump's administration is so [ __ ] corrupt and everything is so out of control. If this were just to be, you know, Major Watson going out there in a civilian outfit and having done the same protest, it probably wouldn't have got any traction. But because you see an active duty commissioned officer in uniform protesting, it just has a more visceral feel to it when you see him getting arrested. Much like when you saw Brian McInness having his arm snapped at a congressional hearing in uniform gives a visceral reaction. And that actually might be where we're at. We might actually just have to have these types of things to get the American people to finally wake the [ __ ] up and realize how tyrannical and authoritarian this government is becoming. And so, I still am not a big fan of seeing it. I do think it's probably actually the right thing to do in a lot of these cases and it might just be required to actually start getting the attention that it needs to get to get people to pay the [ __ ] attention. Because again, what you're going to see is you're going to see Fox News and Newsmax try to railroad this dude and tell you all the things that he did that are illegal when, in fact, he didn't.
So, hopefully, you guys got a lot better understanding about this entire situation and the fact that no, he most certainly should not have been arrested. And if this Trump administration was [ __ ] smart, which they're not, what they would have done is just let this dude peacefully and silently protest, standing there holding his sign, and then move along with your [ __ ] lives. Don't go out there and have the Capitol Police arrest him because all you're going to do is get these visceral images that are going to make you look like an [ __ ] and everybody hates you even more. But again, I've never seen an administration with worse PR than this one. So, it makes sense that they can't help but [ __ ] everything up. And again, going after veterans, that's becoming a new and popular thing for MAGA. And, uh, yeah, it sure is bizarre.
And one final thing, let me give you a hypothetical. If there's any MAGA still hanging on with this video, which there's probably none, but imagine, just imagine, had it been 2022 during COVID and an active duty commissioned officer in uniform would have went up and protested Joe Biden during COVID and been arrested. What do you think MAGA's response would have been to that? I bet you they would have been airing this all day, every day on Fox News at what a terrible situation it is and how terrible this administration is to our veterans, right? But because Trump's in charge, veterans are the bad guy. But of course, there's no actual value or morals there, right? They just do whatever their orange daddy tells them to do. So that's what we got. But anyway, at least you now have a better understanding of the actual law and the UCMJ and how all this works so that you can better discuss this as you go forward. And again, reminder, tonight at 4:00 PM, come and check out our livestream. Got to get ready for Monday's pre-trial. All right, that's going to do it for this one. Catch you all in the next video.