The Tea Party fever has entered the bloodstream of the US military.

A new Tea Party group, Armed Forces Tea Party Patriots, has grown quickly since being launched last month by an active duty Marine Corps sergeant. The group, which vows to "stand up on the very soil we defended to preserve common sense conservatism and defend our Constitution that is threatened by a tyrannical government," currently has over 400 members, who have signed up through its Facebook page, though many are not active duty military. And it has close ties to the broader Tea Party movement.

"People in the military need to be heard," the group's prime organizer, Gary Stein -- a Marine Corps sergeant stationed at Camp Pendleton in southern California -- told TPMmuckraker in an interview. "Our opinions do count."

From the organization's web page:

Armed Forces Tea Party Patriots
World Wide
We have taken a oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the Unites [sic] States against all enemies foreign and domestic…” We have done so around the world… From the jungle of Vietnam to alleys on Fallujah… and now its time we stand up on the very soil we defended to preserve common sense conservatism and defend our Constitution that is threatened by a tyrannical government. For all those that are serving or served and their family members.

Other than to follow the Tea Party's inability to spell, this isn't entirely surprising. Since the military is an all-volunteer force derived from the general US population, you can probably count on a third of them being from the loyal conservative base that served CheneyBush so well. But for active duty service members to join this movement who believes that they are imperiled by a "tyrannical government"... wow. Any active duty service member who publicly signs up for this (or for the Oathkeepers) should be instantly nominated to have his/her security clearance revoked and be processed out of the military. We really don't need a fifth column force within our armed forces.