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In April 2000, Rep. Scott Orr (R-Libby) and five others were going to hold an anti-federal rally in the streets of Libby, MT. Their self-titled "War on the West" rally was geared toward stopping the "federal and global invasion of our rural communities." Among other activities, organizers said the rally would feature the burning of a United Nations flag.

The initial flier for the event circulated throughout the radical right. Militia groups from Montana to Michigan sent rally notices over e-mail lists. Notices were also posted on right-wing, conspiracy-oriented websites and in the anti-Semitic tabloid The Spotlight. MHRN also learned hate groups like the Aryan Nations and the World Church of the Creator planned on attending the event. With these types of people threatening to attend, the city of Libby pressured the organizers to cancel the rally, which the organizers attempted to do. However, the inflammatory rhetoric would not die and, on April 15, militia and white supremacist activists staged a rally near Libby.

The original organizers of the rally have continued their anti-government activities by forming a group called Project 56. Project 56 gets its name from the license plate number designating Lincoln County and is primarily made up of people who supported the "War on the West" rally. The group, led by Scott Orr and Ken Short, is promoting a traditional concept of the anti-government movement, county supremacy. County supremacy views county government as the highest legitimate form of government. The county commission controls and makes decisions about all land within the county's boundaries, and the county sheriff is the supreme law enforcement officer. This belief denies any jurisdiction of the federal government. County supremacy, also known as county home rule, was an integral idea of the Posse Comitatus, a group providing the basic ideologies for the Montana Freemen.

In early October, Project 56 sent a survey to Montana's county sheriffs. It asked the sheriffs if they had experienced "intrusion[s]" on their authority by federal or state agencies. It also asked if the sheriffs would support policies that would make them the chief law enforcement in their communities. Continuing to link Project 56 to anti-government rhetoric, Ken Short said in a December letter to the editor, "We [Project 56] are proud to be Îconstitutionalists.'" Constitutionalists is a term regularly used by self-described freemen. The group's website says the group opposes pluralism, socialism, the New World Order and the United Nations.

In late October, Short wrote a letter to the editor attacking MHRN. He identified MHRN members and directors who worked in or around local governments in Libby. He said this was dangerous, because MHRN was similar to the "Nazi Party" and pushed "socialist philosophies." Around this same time, Project 56 began running ads in local papers claiming the EPA was spreading asbestos contamination during its cleanup projects. Scott Orr has fought with the EPA in the past. In 1997, Orr formed a group called Citizens Against Government Encroachment (CAGE) that aimed to "intimidate the EPA." Orr owns a waste hauling and recycling business and uses a floor drain to dispose of waste water. He didn't want to tell the EPA what else might be going down the drain.