Tricks And Treachery, PART III
Even more members of the Ben Franklin Fellowship
Welcome back to KTB.
The Ben Franklin Fellowship - BFF for short - is a secretive, invite-only club of right-wing foreign policy hands and other, likeminded individuals.
BFFers want to MAGA-ize America’s foreign policy and the agencies that execute it.
BFF “Fellows” post their portraits and bios on the BFF’s website, but most of the BFF’s rank and file - its mere “members” and other hangers-on - keep their association with BFF a secret.
KTB’s previous two posts have called out some of those secretive BFFers who have included conspiracy theorists, bigots, and a Christian nationalist; this week’s post will call out 19 more whose names - until now - were hush-hush.
They that lie down with dogs
Several beltway bandits are BFFers. Patrick Baranowski works for Northrup Grumman. John Sitilides runs his own consulting firm, Trilogy Advisors, and also used to work for the Foreign Service Institute, the State Department’s training center. And Michael Tint has worked for several defense contractors and believes that “‘defund the left’ has to become the mantra of conservatives everywhere.”
That comment of Michael’s is in the Heritage Foundation’s Presidential Personnel Database, a database which was leaked in the summer and which includes the names of wannabe Trump appointees and their answers to a questionnaire.
Answers such as the long, weird ramble from another BFFer, Debbie Ash, that began with these homophobic and transphobic remarks.
Marriage between one man and one woman is God’s standard, and it should be ours as a nation. Our children are not to be murdered in the womb or sold for profit. …
There are only two genders, male and female. We must have compassion on those who don’t hold to this basic belief but must insist on the science and not yield any more institutions over to depravity, and take back what has been overrun.
Debbie’s answer also lamented the jailing of January 6 rioters:
I have read about the horrible treatment of men, women, and teens who were at the U.S. Capitol on January 6 2021. … During the COVID plandemic the inmates were at the mercy of cruel people. … I am on the board of a foundation, “Stand in the Gap.”
Debbie’s word “plandemic” is not a typo: the “plandemic” is a conspiracy theory about COVID-19. And her foundation, Stand in the Gap, is a lobbying organization for January 6 rioters run by J6 conspiracy theorists and sympathizers.
Debbie is a retired “foreign service specialist,” a type of State Department employee who provides technical or admin support to American diplomats. In 2021, after retiring, Debbie ran for her local school board. Her platform denounced “race equity” and “leftist activism,” and also vaccine requirements, mask wearing, and social distancing during COVID. She finished last in a 7 candidate field.
Debbie’s fellow BFFer, Bernadette Wolfe, is also a former specialist - and adult pageant queen who was Ms. Woman Virginia 2019. Today, Bernadette lives in Texas, and last year, she was elected Chair of the Coryell County Republican Party. Bernadette is also in the Heritage Foundation’s database.
Darren Thies is a BFFer. He is a diplomat who is now hawking his self-published book, “How To Be A Diplomat,” on Amazon. Yours for the low, low price of $19.99 in paperback, $9.99 on Kindle! Buy it now, and help Darren violate ethics regs on accepting compensation for writing about his official duties!
BFFer Stephen Whaley is also a writer. He is a diplomat and sci fi fan who wrote his own science fiction novel. He also writes white papers for BFF under the sci fi pen name “Chakotay,” the name of a Star Trek: Voyager character.
Many other diplomats and State Department employees belong to the BFF: Adam Brock, Matt Simiskey, Matt Ference, Lee Lukoff, Mary Bati, Joseph Loewy, Benjamin Le Roy, and Mary Tyler Holmes are some of them.
So is Daniel Boehmer who is also in the Heritage Foundation’s database and who gave this answer to Heritage’s questionnaire:
Conservatives of all stripes [should not] be forced to be content with merely stopping the tide of leftism. Christian nationalism posits a more wholistic vision and aspires to heal our society for the ground up in order to stem the tide of cultural Marxism.
Yup, Daniel is a Christian nationalist. Doesn’t even try to hide it.
Several think tankers and pundits are also BFFers. Carlos Roa is one; KTB already called him out in its post on the Claremont Institute’s Publius Fellows.
James Carden is another. James is a former State Department advisor who now writes lots of columns that bash the “foreign policy establishment” (whatever that means), as well as Democrats and MAGA foils such as Dr. Fauci and John Bolton; and that applaud MAGA heroes such as RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard.
And Anthony Constantini is also a BFFer. Anthony belongs to a right-wing think tank, the Bull Moose Project, and also writes lots of right-wing columns. He is a fan of Joe McCarthy and Richard Nixon and, like those paranoids, wants to use force against non-existent threats: in a recent, typical article, he urged Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act against “leftists and anarchical groups such as Antifa.”
In another article, Anthony described himself as excited “to see Western nationalists working together” and hoped that Trump and other far-right world leaders will “replac[e] the liberal democratic ideal with a new commitment to nationalists’ preferred ideal of Western civilization…and the promotion of Christian values.”
That’s right: Anthony is another Christian nationalist, even though he doesn’t use that term (“nationalists” + “promotion of Christian values” = Christian nationalist).
Sure are a lot of those in the BFF.
Note: KTB continues to follow leads on the names of more BFFers. If those leads - and any others that KTB receives - pan out, we’ll update this post.
Update 12/9
Three more BFFers have been identified:
Charles Yockey is a young political appointee and Special Assistant. He dislikes refugees and COVID boosters, and he wants the Trump Administration to oversee the finances, hiring, and admissions at America’s colleges and universities.
Also, Tammy Fitzgerald is a retired diplomat, and Max Weissberg is a filmmaker who the BFF has just hired to be its “Producer/Director/Editor/Animator.”
MAGA animation? Can’t wait to see…
Read a bit more about them here. And more names are coming soon…
Update 12/16
Another three BFF members identified:
Michael Orona is a long-time State Department hand whose is in the metadata of an article that was recently posted to the BFF website and attributed to others.
Rebekah Krimmel worked for 14 years at USAID, the agency the BFF’s website accuses of “extensive waste, fraud, and abuse over many years.”
And Brooke Taylor works for several small firms in the defense industry and, in 2022, ran for Congress, finishing last in the Republican primary.
Read a bit more about them here.
And yes, even more names will be coming soon…
Contact KTB
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They should go back to the 1950s. I believe that they'd ENJOY the hell out of the McCarthy era, the Red Scare, Communist Witch Hunts, destroying reputations & careers..... they'd have a ball.
Un”F”n-believable! Thanks for this expose’