In early May an aggrieved civilian working at Tobyhanna Army Depot in Pennsylvania contacted Michael “Mikey” Weinstein with a religious complaint so horrible, so egregious, so dangerous that it is amazing it had not already caused massive loss of life.

Someone was wearing a hat.

Quoth Weinstein [emphasis added]:

Dear Col. Peterson,

Sir, one of your armed, DOD, Army, civilian gate guards at the Tobyhanna Army Depot Main or “Scranton” gate is wearing a baseball hat with the biblical citation from the New Testament Book of John “3:16” on it…

MRFF demands that you immediately order that offending gate guard to expeditiously remove that Christian-proselytizing baseball hat and appropriately, aggressively and visibly punish that individual as well as all others in his chain of command who are either directly or indirectly responsible…

It just takes a hat to convert people?  Missionaries have been doing it wrong all these years.

Turns out Weinstein was pretty far off the mark. First, it seems the person in question not armed — a detail Weinstein felt was so important he specifically called it out — yet he got it completely wrong. Second, he also wasn’t dressed like a gate guard — because he wasn’t one.

Upon receiving this information about the person with whom he’d supposedly personally interacted and by whom he’d been offended, Weinstein’s “client” complained yet again, saying

I have been entering that same gate every morning for many many years and have never been checked by anyone but either an armed Dept. of the Army civilian security guard or an armed active duty Army security officer…

Sorry, but if you didn’t even realize the person who you saw that day wasn’t wearing a gun, how can you honestly attest to that never happening before? Not the sharpest knife in the drawer, are you?

It turns out Weinstein’s target was wearing a hat with “3:16” on it — which every child of the 90s knows is a reference to professional wrestler Stone Cold Steve Austin. Apparently, Mikey Weinstein and his easily offended followers figured the person was trying to subliminally convert them to WWE wrestling through proximity to his headgear.

For their part, it seems Tobyhanna handled the complaint somewhat well. Though Weinstein addressed his invective to the Depot’s commander, US Army Col Greg Peterson, a response came only from Tobyhanna’s Public Affairs office — which, if you’re going to respond at all, would be the right place. (Tobyhanna has been the subject of Weinstein’s scorn before — likely because the same “victims” are still there — so they may know the drill.) Tobyhanna also cited their governing guidance, which in this case wasn’t military regulations, but “Guidelines on Religious Exercise and Expression in the Federal Workplace”.

The ever-salient Chris Rodda finally weighed in, and she chose to abandon her religious freedom “charity’s” religious complaint and instead put the MRFF in the role of security monitor for the Army:

In these days when the security of our military installations is an issue of paramount importance, Tobyhanna Army Depot is actually allowing untrained, unarmed civilian employees to help out by playing security guard at its main gate!

(Of note, Chris Rodda never says how she was able to figure out the person in question was “untrained.” Apparently we just need to trust her.)

It’s been decades since Chris Rodda was in the Army, and she apparently doesn’t remember ever “playing” gate guard. But, perhaps as a result of these modern days of constrained resources, it is not uncommon for Soldiers, Airmen, Marines, or their civilian counterparts to “augment” base security at the access gates. It is also not unusual for commanders, senior enlisted leadership, chaplains, public affairs, and even just random troops to volunteer to spend time with the men and women who stand guard. It’s a normal, benign event for a variety of base-associated personnel to be involved with gate security.

The most interesting part of this exercise, however, was the deafening silence that followed.

Weinstein posted the story on his Facebook page no less than three times, generating only a few comments — most of which seemed to be mocking him. (Of note, he didn’t pay Facebook to distribute it this time.) Chris Rodda cross posted her blog on a couple of different sites (DailyKos and her personal blog at the Huffington Post) — which similarly generated almost no interest. Weinstein’s normal press contacts at the Military Times, Military.com, and a few other sites didn’t seem interested in the story.

It seems even Mikey Weinstein can’t manufacture a good scandal anymore — which may explain the recent lull in vitriol with which he attacks the US military. Is this faux outrage on a baseball cap really the worst thing Weinstein’s been able to come up with?  It’s been months since he demanded Gen Bentz be fired, and he was ignored then, too.

It seems 2017 has been a rough year for Mikey.  If Weinstein isn’t careful, his donors are going to start wondering if they’re getting their money’s worth.

Then again, maybe that’s what’s motivating him to manufacture ridiculous “controversies.”

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