Recent Forum Topics › Forums › The Public House › Rightwing violent-fringe, rightwing conspiracy theories, etc.
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June 19, 2020 at 8:10 am #116756
wvParticipantWhen i talk to violent-rightwing-white-nationalists here in WV,
there is always the assumption (on their part) that a ‘Race War’ is coming.
They are always preparing for it. It bonds them together. They look forward to it.Ah well.
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“…In Oakland, California, an Air Force staff sergeant named Steven Carrillo and another man, Robert Alvin Justus Jr., were arrested after the May 29 murder of two uniformed federal law enforcement officials. Carrillo is also suspected of killing a sheriff’s deputy in Santa Cruz, California, on June 6. The suspects appear connected to the white supremacist “boogaloo” movement that has been targeting cops for violence in hopes of provoking a race war in the U.S. Other “boogaloo” movement operatives were arrested in Nevada for a plot to firebomb a park ranger station. Neo-Confederates were arrested in North Carolina after shooting at protesters. A Trump-loving bar owner in Nebraska shot a protester, and is claiming self-defense.On top of the actual violence, the threat of violence has been wielded across the country. In small towns like Bethel, Ohio; Klamath Falls, Oregon; and Great Falls, Montana, small Black Lives Matter demonstrations have been met with groups of angry and armed white men ready to tangle with what they claim are “antifa invaders.” In the small town of Forks, Washington, just outside Olympic National Park, a multiracial family visiting the area on a camping trip found themselves followed and surrounded by a group of armed right-wingers, who sawed down trees to trap the family, accusing them of being antifa. They were rescued by a group of high school students.
Perhaps the wildest incident involved a man named Daniel Peña in the border city of McAllen, Texas, who went after protesters with a chainsaw while shouting racial slurs about Black people. Video of his unhinged behavior was shared approvingly by Trump campaign senior adviser Mercedes Schlapp. When she was called out for it, Schlapp apologized for the profanity — but not the racism or the threats of bodily harm against peaceful protesters….”
link:https://www.salon.com/2020/06/17/how-and-why-fox-news-is-encouraging-right-wing-vigilante-violence-toward-protesters/June 19, 2020 at 8:20 am #116757wvParticipantForks, Washington. (where Twilight vampires and wearwolves co-exist):
Forks:https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2020/jun/05/spokane-family-accused-of-being-antifa-by-armed-lo/
Spokane family harassed, then trapped in forest campsite in Western Washington, sheriff’s office says“….A Spokane family’s camping trip in Western Washington became a nightmarish experience when armed locals accused them of being left-wing extremists, followed their bus along a forest road and cut down trees to prevent them from leaving the woods, according to the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office.
Deputies and other local law enforcement officers responded to a call for help from the stranded campers at about 6:40 p.m. Wednesday near the small town of Forks, the sheriff’s office said in a news release. The sheriff’s office did not identify the campers but described them as a multiracial family from Spokane consisting of a husband and wife, their 16-year-old daughter and the husband’s mother.
The family had been driving a full-size school bus to camp on the Olympic Peninsula and stopped at a local store, Forks Outfitters, to pick up supplies, the sheriff’s office said.
“There, the family was confronted by seven or eight carloads of people in the grocery store parking lot,” the sheriff’s office said. “The people in the parking lot repeatedly asked them if they were ‘antifa’ protesters. The family told the people they weren’t associated with any such group and were just camping.”
Antifa, short for antifascist, is not a single organization or group but rather an umbrella term for a movement of leftists and anarchists, some of whom commit violence or damage property at demonstrations against police brutality and white supremacy. Amid nationwide protests this week prompted by the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, myths have circulated online about antifa agitators arriving in small towns aboard buses and planes to incite violence, looting and vandalism.
The sheriff’s office said the family had to drive their bus around other vehicles in the parking lot before heading north on U.S. Highway 101, where they were followed by at least four vehicles. People in two of those vehicles had what appeared to be semiautomatic rifles, the family told deputies.
“The family drove their bus up the A Road and onto a logging spur road where they pitched a tent in order to camp for the night,” the sheriff’s office said. “They became concerned for their safety after hearing gunshots in the distance and power saws down the road from where they were camping.”
Scared, the family decided to pack up and leave, but soon realized that someone – apparently the mob from the store parking lot – had cut down trees along the A Road, preventing their exit. The sheriff’s office said four Forks High School students had tried to help the family by clearing the road with chain saws.
Police and deputies escorted the family to a station in Forks, interviewed them and later helped them get their bus running again after it broke down, the sheriff’s office said.
The sheriff’s office said it’s “actively conducting a criminal investigation into the incident and is seeking any and all information regarding those persons involved.”
June 19, 2020 at 10:45 am #116771wvParticipantThen there’s this kind of thing:https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/this-megachurch-pastor-actually-tried-to-rebrand-white-privilege-as-white-blessing-gifted-from-slavery/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=4804
“….Atlanta megachurch pastor Louie Giglio gave the obligatory apology Tuesday after attempting to repackage the phrase “white privilege” as a “white blessing” during a talk about race and religion. “We understand the curse that was slavery, white people do,” Giglio said Sunday during the conversation. “And we say that was bad. But we miss the blessing of slavery, that it actually built up the framework for the world that white people live in.”
Giglio, who presides over Passion City Church, provided a bit of context for his rebranding attempt, saying that “white privilege” is striking the wrong nerve and that because he was born in a segregated Southern city in 1958, he is “living in the blessing of the curse that happened generationally that allowed me to grow up in Atlanta.”
June 19, 2020 at 10:52 am #116772
joemadParticipantLocal Leaders Warned of New Extremist Group Threat
The so-called “Boogaloo Boys” extremist group now being tied to the killings of two Bay Area law enforcement officers is believed to have about a dozen members locally. And sources tell NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit they’ve been plotting to kidnap the children of local leaders.Once regarded as a social media fringe group, known for strange quasi military style insignia and Hawaiian style shirts, the so-called Boogaloo Movement has become very real threat for law enforcement locally and nationally.
This week, federal prosecutors announced that Steven Carrillo, the accused gunman in fatal attacks on a federal security officer and a Sheriff’s deputy, wrote the word “BOOG” in blood after the ambush killing of Santa Cruz sheriff’s Sgt. Damon Gutzwiller.
“The boogaloo term is used by extremists to reference a violent uprising or an impending civil war in the United States,” Northern California U.S. Attorney David Anderson said at a press conference this week.
he group is believed to have first formed in online chat forums on sites like 4chan. Many believe the chose the word “boogaloo” as a reference to the 1980s film Breaking’ 2: Electric Boogaloo – and that it’s meant to imply a lesser “sequel” to something that has already happened – for example, a civil war.
Anderson believes Carrillo and an accomplice were also attempting to further the “boogaloo boys” goal of triggering a civil war when they gunned down Federal Protective Services officer David Patrick Underwood outside the federal courthouse in Oakland on May 29.
“Pat Underwood was murdered because he wore a uniform,” Anderson said.
But the attorney representing Carrillo disputes how prosecutors have characterized him.
“I cannot comment on my client’s involvement or non-involvement with the movement,” said attorney Jeffrey Stotter. But he stressed that Carrillo served with distinction in a staff sergeant in a special protection unit of the Air Force, even after his wife killed herself in 2018.
“He’s certainly emotionally and psychologically traumatized by all of these events, including his service to our country.”
But federal authorities say their evidence includes postings they believe Carrillo made on Facebook just hours before the Oakland courthouse killing – advocating violence.
One post reads, “We have mobs of angry people to use to our advantage.” Prosecutors say Carrillo posted that after 8 a.m. on the day Underwood was killed, and another security officer was killed at the Oakland federal building. They note that those shooting happened in the midst of a major Black Lives Matter demonstration on Oakland’s streets – suggesting Carrillo was using the protest as cover.
Sources with knowledge of the investigation claim that Carrillo is one of a dozen members of a local “boogaloo” cell. They also believe the attacks the group had been planning are not limited to law enforcement.
Sources say that elected leaders in at least two cities in the East Bay were recently alerted to suspected plots by “boogaloo” movement members to kidnap their children.
Investigators tracking the “boogaloo” movement note that the group is particularly dangerous because they sometimes defy classification – with some members advocating for white supremacy, while others are simply anti-government.
“The boogaloo boys movement, whether they are racist or not, is looking to start a civil war,” said Brian Levin, head of the Center For the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State Sacramento. “And who are the folks that are likely targets? Government officials.”
Levin says he has watched with alarm over the past year as the group escalated attacks and became a broad umbrella for the various extremist factions scattered across the U.S.
“They all glorify heavy armaments and confrontation, they are looking for a catalyst for an impending civil war,” he said, adding that the movement is bent on exploiting the current national turmoil.
“Anything goes in these kinds of turbulent election seasons,” Levin said, “where we have a variety of catalysts as well as an expandable pool of potential recruits who are fearful or upset over recent developments.”
June 28, 2020 at 12:18 pm #117275
znModeratorCharlottesville Nazis’ Lawyers Keep Dumping Them Ahead of Trial
Lawyers for some of the defendants in a lawsuit over 2017’s deadly Unite the Right rally accuse their own clients and former clients of impeding the discovery process.https://www.thedailybeast.com/charlottesville-nazis-lawyers-keep-dumping-them-ahead-of-trial
When an attorney in a sprawling civil case dropped Richard Spencer as a client on Monday, the white nationalist became the eighth person to lose representation in the lawsuit, which takes aim at participants in the deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017.
The lawsuit Sines v. Kessler names as defendants many of the major far-right participants in the Unite the Right rally—as it was branded—which plaintiffs say left lasting physical and emotional scars on Charlottesville and its people. Since the lawsuit was filed in late 2017, defendants have struggled to find or retain legal representation. Some, like Spencer and the former leader of the fascist “Traditionalist Worker Party,” got dropped for unpaid legal fees. A lawyer representing the neo-Nazi “National Socialist Movement” has filed, unsuccessfully, to drop clients over a supposed conflict of interest. And multiple defendants have lost representation after their lawyers said they were impossible—in one case, “repugnant”—to work with.
Much of the American legal system has ground to a halt in recent months, with courtrooms closed over COVID-19, delaying civil and criminal cases alike. But the defendants in the Unite the Right case have a different problem: in a country with a long history of repugnant figures securing A-list legal representation, no one wants to hold them down.
Spencer’s lawyer, John DiNucci, filed to drop him as a client earlier this month, citing unpaid fees and his alleged lack of cooperation with the case. In a hearing this month, Spencer claimed his reputation prevented him from making enough money to pay his lawyer. (This month Spencer also faced, but avoided, jail time over unpaid fees related to his ongoing divorce in Montana.) Neither Spencer nor DiNucci returned The Daily Beast’s request for comment.
Sines v. Kessler is being backed by the civil liberties group Integrity First For America. Its executive director, Amy Spitalnick, said defendants’ lawyers were jumping ship for a variety of reasons.
“In some cases, these attorneys have moved to withdraw because they haven’t been paid or their clients haven’t been communicating with them,” Spitalnick told The Daily Beast. “In other cases, they’ve cited their clients’ ‘repugnant conduct.’ At the end of the day, the clients and their attorneys, to the extent they have them, are obligated to comply with the court orders and the defendants’ discovery obligations. That is what our plaintiffs are focused on right now.”
Although Sines v. Kessler is scheduled to go to trial in October, the discovery process is long underway. Plaintiffs are pushing defendants to turn over communications and evidence relating to the planning of the rally, where a neo-Nazi drove a car into a crowd of counter-demonstrators, killing one and wounding dozens more.
But some of the defendants’ own lawyers accuse their clients and former clients of impeding the discovery process. Attorneys Elmer Woodard and James Kolenich, who represent many defendants, abandoned the neo-Nazi group Vanguard America last June, claiming that the now-disbanded hate group had stopped communicating with them in the discovery process.
Dillon Hopper, the group’s one-time leader, told The Daily Beast he hadn’t turned in the necessary information.
“The reason I was dropped is due to my own failure to provide proper documentation in a timely manner, which caused the lawyer to become disgruntled and not want to represent me any further,” Hopper said in an email. In a filing last year, he also claimed that he was broke, and could not pay more urgent medical bills.
Though they still represent a host of far-right defendants, Woodard and Kolenich have apparently given up on three others. In January 2019, the pair successfully withdrew from representing former Traditionalist Worker Party leader Matthew Heimbach. (It was their second attempt, after their first motion to withdraw was denied.) The lawyers said Heimbach hadn’t paid them, and that he’d cut off communication with them.
In a message to The Daily Beast, Heimbach said the lawsuit was too expensive, and accused Woodard and Kolenich of jacking up their rates because “most attorneys don’t want to be labeled a ‘Klan lawyer.’” (Neither Woodard nor Kolenich returned requests for comment.) He also cited campaigns by anti-fascists to boot white supremacists off online fundraising platforms like GoFundMe.
Woodard and Kolenich (the latter of whom previously gave an interview parroting an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory and claiming that “white people are the chosen people in the New Testament”) have also dropped a pair of far-right internet-personalities in the case. In July, they withdrew representation from Christopher Cantwell and Robert “Azzmador” Ray.
Ray has been difficult to work with, the lawyers argued, because he’s been on the run since at least June 2018, avoiding charges for allegedly using tear gas at Unite the Right. (His defense in that case is shaky, because he boasted on video that “I personally, literally, gassed half a dozen k*kes.”)
The lawyers’ only means of contacting Ray was via the comments section on a white supremacist site. “Counsel had to request contact through an alternative means (an online Alt-Right comment area) and Mr. Ray would then call,” they wrote in a filing, adding that he had not paid his bills. (Ray could not be reached for comment.)
Woodard and Kolenich also dropped Cantwell, after he made violent comments about the plaintiffs’ lead attorney on the messaging app Telegram. “Mr. Cantwell has rendered Attorney’s continued representation of him unreasonably difficult, has created a conflict of interest between himself and Attorney’s other clients, and has engaged in conduct Attorney’s consider ‘repugnant or imprudent,’” the lawyers wrote in a withdrawal motion, also citing his unpaid legal fees. (Cantwell could not be immediately reached, as he is in jail awaiting trial for incitement after he allegedly threatened to rape a woman in front of her children.)
Meanwhile, an attorney representing the group National Socialist Movement and its former leader has filed to withdraw, so far unsuccessfully. Attorney William ReBrook, who did not return a request for comment, claimed that representing both the group and its former leader constituted a conflict of interest. That former leader, Jeff Schoep, claims to have abandoned decades of neo-Nazism just in time for the lawsuit, a claim that some observers of the far right have met with raised eyebrows. (Schoep did not return a request for comment.)
In a filing opposing ReBrook’s withdrawal, plaintiffs’ lawyers argued that ReBrook knew Schoep had already stepped down by the time he took the case. The plaintiffs accused ReBrook of being a “willing participant” in an increasingly complex bid not to turn over discovery evidence.
Spitalnick said the defendants had spent years trying to avoid handing over records that might indicate their complicity in the violent rally. It was hard not to see the fiasco that is their quest for legal representation as an extension of that.
“It’s been over two and a half years since this case was filed,” she said, “and the defendants have tried every trick in the book to avoid accountability.”
June 28, 2020 at 1:26 pm #117277
Billy_TParticipantRelated:
And this, from America’s most dangerous AG in generations:
June 26, 2020 at 5:15 p.m. EDT Attorney General William P. Barr on Friday directed the formation of a task force that will be dedicated to countering “anti-government extremists,” escalating federal law enforcement’s response to the violence that has sometimes marked nationwide protests against police brutality and racism, according to a memo obtained by The Washington Post. In the memo, Barr wrote that amid peaceful demonstrations, anti-government extremists had “engaged in indefensible acts of violence designed to undermine public order.”
Obviously, when Barr talks about “extremists,” he’s referring to we leftists, not right-wingers who actually commit nearly 99% of the violence. Egged on by Trump and right-wing media, he’s referring primarily to “antifa,” which Trump and company could decide is pretty much any dissenters they don’t like.
We’re in political hell, folks, along with pandemical hell.
July 1, 2020 at 11:13 pm #117433znModeratorfrom the wiki
QAnon
QAnon[a] (/kjuːəˈnɒn/) is a far-right conspiracy theory detailing a supposed secret plot by an alleged “deep state” against U.S. President Donald Trump and his supporters. The theory began with an October 2017 post on the anonymous imageboard 4chan by someone using the name Q, who was presumably an American individual initially, but probably later became a group of people, claiming to have access to classified information involving the Trump administration and its opponents in the United States. Q has falsely accused many liberal Hollywood actors, Democratic politicians, and high-ranking officials of being members of an international child sex trafficking ring, and has claimed that Donald Trump feigned collusion with Russians in order to enlist Robert Mueller to join him in exposing the ring and preventing a coup d’état by Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and George Soros. “Q” is a reference to the Q clearance used by the Department of Energy. QAnon believers commonly tag their social media posts with the hashtag #WWG1WGA, signifying the motto “Where We Go One, We Go All”.
July 2, 2020 at 10:44 am #117479Billy_TParticipantThis one could also go in the Are the Dems and Republicans really different thread . . . But it fits here too:
Yeah, the Dems suck. They’re lame all too often. They fall waaay short all too often. But they don’t run/elect complete nutcases like this woman.
What a combo? A gun nut, who open-carries at her restaurant and has her staff do this too . . . and she also supports the truly bat-shit crazy QAnon conspiracy theories.
She may well win in November and actually be a House member.
America has lost it’s freakin mind.
September 5, 2020 at 1:11 am #120404znModeratorCharges filed against militia members traveling to Kenosha
https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/04/politics/militia-members-kenosha/index.html
(CNN)Two members of the 417 Second Amendment Militia group from Missouri traveling to Kenosha, Wisconsin, were arrested Thursday by federal officials and charged with illegally possessing a cache of weapons.
Michael M. Karmo and Cody E. Smith were separately charged and ordered to be temporarily detained until their bail hearings on September 8 at 10:30 a.m. in front of Magistrate Judge Stephen C. Dries.
Karmo, 40 and Smith, 33, were roommates for a month, worked together and were members of the 417 Second Amendment Militia, a pro-law enforcement group, according to the criminal complaint.
They traveled by car to Kenosha to “see for themselves” what was going on at the protests, attended a “Make America Great Again” rally and planned to go to Portland to “take action” if police were defunded, according to Karmo’s criminal complaint.“Kenosha Police Department advised FBI that a law enforcement agency in Iowa had received a tip that Karmo and an unidentified male were in possession of firearms and traveling from Missouri to Kenosha, Wisconsin,” prosecutors said in a statement Thursday.
FBI agents found in their hotel room an Armory AR-15 rifle, a Mossberg 500 AB 12-Gauge shotgun, two handguns, a silencer, ammunition, body armor, a drone, a twisted cable survival saw, a dagger and other materials, prosecutors said. They each have criminal records and were not authorized to have any firearms or ammunition, prosecutors said.
Their criminal complaints contained screenshots of Karmo’s Facebook page where he posed in all black attire and in one photograph is allegedly holding a gun with a laser.
An attorney was not listed for Karmo, according to the online court file. A request for comment from Smith’s attorney Craig Albee was not returned on Friday.
If convicted they each face up to 10 years in prison for each charge.September 9, 2020 at 12:53 pm #120659znModeratorPolice: Richmond riots instigated by white supremacists disguised as Black Lives Matter
RICHMOND, Va. – Riots in downtown Richmond over the weekend were instigated by white supremacists under the guise of Black Lives Matter, according to law enforcement officials.
Protesters tore down police tape and pushed forward toward Richmond police headquarters, where they set a city dump truck on fire.
Police declared the event an “unlawful assembly” and ordered people to leave, later deploying tear gas.
Six people were arrested. The mayor of Richmond thanked the Black Lives Matter protesters he said tried to stop the white supremacists from spearheading the violence.
“Their mission is simple, not the Richmond we know,” said Mayor Levar Stoney.
Besides the police department, damage also occurred in and around the VCU campus.
September 9, 2020 at 2:40 pm #120662
waterfieldParticipantCharles Manson is alive and well and out there someplace directing the Boogaloo Boys-or whatever they call themselves.
September 9, 2020 at 3:22 pm #120665
ZooeyModeratorSeptember 26, 2020 at 1:51 am #121721znModeratorPatriot Coalition: Leaked Messages Show Far-Right Group’s Plans for Portland Violence
The summer of 2020 has seen the city of Portland, Oregon, become a symbol and a venue for the further, dramatic polarization of the United States. More than a hundred nights of intense protests against police violence by left-wing activists have led to further police violence in response, and to President Donald Trump declaring the city a “beehive of terrorists” and an “anarchist jurisdiction.” A great deal of reporting has been dedicated to the city’s leftist protesters. Less national attention has been focused on those who perceive the protesters as their enemies: a network of “Patriot” militias and extremist groups, who have in recent weeks been staging violent confrontations in Portland’s downtown streets.
Bellingcat has acquired several months of chat logs from the Patriot Coalition of Oregon, a network of pro-Trump, pro-police activists. These chat logs were provided by an infiltrator affiliated with the antifascist collective Eugene Antifa. We were also given login information for the infiltrator’s account on GroupMe, a secure messaging app owned by Microsoft. This allowed us to directly observe the group’s communications, to verify the information provided to us and to export a log of those chats directly from the application. (Many posts contain spelling and grammatical errors, which we have not altered.)
These logs provide an intimate look inside a growing insurgent network, and shed new light on episodes of armed conflict which are already on the public record. Topics of conversation include plans for violence in the streets of Portland, celebration of acts of thuggery and even discussions about harming elected leaders and journalists. More than anything, the chats catalog the rapid radicalization of Patriot Coalition’s membership, many of whom express a willingness to kill their perceived left-wing enemies.
Who Are These People?
The Patriot Coalition of Oregon (often just referred to as Patriot Coalition) was founded in the summer of 2020 by a person who posted under the GroupMe username “Patriot Coalition.” Most other members called her “Momma Bear.” She appears to have been largely motivated by her love of the police and military, as well as her support for President Trump. On August 20th she wrote: “I am the founder of the group- I founded it months ago and it was because I was sick and F’ing tired of watching what was happening… we have men and women fighting for us to keep us safe- they deserve to come home to peace- NOT continue to fight! We owe that to them…”
The leaked chat logs appear to reveal that some members of the Patriot Coalition have taken part in multiple violent rallies throughout the summer, and that they claim to have operated a series of vigilante patrols and checkpoints during the Oregon wildfires. While the chats appear to show they work and fight alongside members of extremist groups like the Proud Boys, American Wolf and 1776 2.0, the Patriot Coalition seems to have no coherent ideology beyond a desire to violently confront leftists in the name of the police and President Trump. A user identified as Paige summed up the general feelings of the group in a post made ahead of a what turned out to be a bloody ‘Back the Blue’ rally on August 22nd in Portland when she wrote: “I’m waiting for the presidential go to start open firing.”
Online, Patriot Coalition prides itself on an unusually strict vetting process, which they (wrongly, it turns out) believed would protect them from being infiltrated. The group’s most public face was its Facebook group. A first (now archived) page had more than 1,500 members.
Individuals interested in joining were subjected to a “security check” before being allowed into a private GroupMe room where more secretive conversations occurred and potential illegal and violent activity was discussed. Membership in this group tended to hover a little over 100.
In chats, ‘Momma Bear’ and other leaders of the group repeatedly expressed confidence in their vetting process. This probably explains why members of the group felt comfortable posting shocking and disturbing content. In one example from August 16th, a user identified as Shelly A suggested members of Patriot Coalition might kill antifascists with injected poisons.
Immediately after this she notes that she is, “…getting tired of hearing about them and the evil Democrats.” Patriot Coalition members regularly declare Democratic politicians to be “Antifa” and thus fair targets for violence.
Over the course of the summer, the group’s original founder stepped down amid dissension over the group’s response to Oregon’s wildfire emergency – her efforts to restrain members from a vigilante response to false information about Antifa arsonists cost her popularity among members.
A new leader, identified as “Trent,” was appointed in her place, heading a leadership team which was often challenged and berated in the chats. Trent soon decided he didn’t want to lead the group either, but eventually changed his mind and recommitted. Beyond this leadership turmoil, the chat logs show frequent conflicts between members over the wisdom of certain actions, including attacks in the city of Portland. Some of these arguments have led to members leaving. Those who remain have expressed a growing desire to train and prepare for further violence, up to and beyond November’s Presidential election.
As user Roger Charlie Bravo posted on September 15th: “What we are doing is not random. Patriots around the country are currently organizing and preparing. We know D day is coming after November. We know that what we are seeing now is a betrayal of trust of the people by our government. We know that this war has a long time to go. We are not alone. There are people all around us supporting us. There are people all around that would stand side by side with us.”
Planning for Violence
Discussions of violence in the Patriot Coalition group chat are not hypothetical. While some individuals are likely grandstanding, the chat logs show members gearing up for a number of events where very real violence occurred.
On August 22nd more than 300 heavily armed right-wing demonstrators rallied in downtown Portland for what was, nominally, a rally supporting the police. Yet the situation quickly degenerated into a mass brawl, with numerous injuries (including to one of the authors of this article).
Those events reflected the plans that Patriot Coalition had made. In the lead up, members discussed acquiring paintball guns and freezing their ammunition for maximum damage. During a discussion on August 18th, a member asked: “Is this for real? Paintballs?” The group founder, ‘Momma Bear,’ who at that point was still in a leadership position, responded: “Some people do not own anything else – or they can’t own anything else.” Though she didn’t clarify the comment, federal gun laws in the United States bar felons from owning powder firearms.
She went on to write: “Paintball markers can be amped up to push more power- trust me – they freakin hurt and leave nasty ass bruises…So for all of you paintball marker carriers- see if you can somehow get your hands on Dynasty’s Banana paint- it has a nasty chemical in it that causes cramping.”
One member of the group, David Willis, messaged the group on August 18th to ask: “Where do you get rubber balls for your paintball gun?” During the rally, Willis was apparently filmed and identified by antifascist activists as having fired indiscriminately into a crowd of left-wing protesters. He later bragged in the chat, after the August 22nd protest: “I was the one with the ar style paintballcgun yesterday i had 200 rubber rounds they worked great but i did have some jams it could have been the gun.”
Willis is currently being sued as the result of an assault on a Portland cider bar frequented by antifascists. During one discussion in the chats, he urged members not to freeze paintballs as “it makes them wildly inaccurate.” Instead, he suggested purchasing “glass breaker balls that are rubber coated metal.”
The authors of this article attempted to reach out to Willis but did not receive a response before press time.
Mark Melchi, a member of the chat group who also heads a militant anti-Antifa group named 1776 2.0, posted on August 17th: “My Group 1776 2.0. Has been fighting Antifa in Seattle, Portland, for months. They are all hit an run tactics from a few behind the main rows of people. When things get going. The Portland Ganges who also hide in Antifa will shoot you…Like they have done with a few of our guys. This won’t be a simple fist fight. People will get shot, stabbed and beat. We have fought with guys in Portland who are like giant Russians so, they’re not all soy boys. We must be ready to defend with lethal response. If we don’t get to enough of them they will just comeback when we leave, just like the Taliban did in Afghanistan. We need to make it dramatic enough for them not to want to return. Suggest wearing mask and nothing to identify you on Camera…to prevent any future prosecution.”
A pseudonymous user who identified as Dan-Medford, appeared to agree: “Always wear a mask at these events.” He added, “if its my time, then its my time. But I’m going out the same way I came in. Bloody and screaming. No more terrorists in my home.” Another user, Rex, said: “We need to tell the feds ‘we’re coming and Hells coming with us’ and if they’re not going to help… then stay the f..k out of our way.” This too met widespread agreement, with a user named Ken stating on the topic of antifascists: “They need to be shot down like rabid coyotes no questions asked.”
When contacted by the authors of this article by email, Melchi suggested screen grabs of comments could have been easily altered with Photoshop, without addressing the exported chat logs, or accounting for his comments. In response to questions about his comments, and his political beliefs, Melchi issued threats, writing “Communist/Domestic Terrorists/Marxis have zero place in America and will be removed from our land, with hugs, violence, snacks, however!”
The chat logs appear to show that the eventual use of less-than-lethal weapons on August 22nd was a grudging compromise, made between more aggressive and cautious members for the sake of public impressions, or “optics.” Prior to the afternoon rally user Ramon Blackwolf warned that the event would receive “nation wide attention.” He followed up by promising: “But our fun will be Saturday night.” On August 19th Melchi asked for clarification about what was planned for the night of the 22nd.
“Hey guys, I guess I miss understood something originally. All the groups we have coming is for the night clearing operation or for the back the blue event in the day? I thought the night operation was the real focus. Just trying to clarify so I can correct with my members as well.”
A user who identified as Nate D. responded to him; “Both are important in my opinion. I plan to be there all day and night until the streets are clear lol.” Another member identified as Jason followed up: “I think most are in favor of both. A huge show of presence in the day to let them know we are here and a night op to show that we are done fucking around.” This plan met with widespread approval, with Patriot Coalition founder ‘Momma Bear’ noting: “Daytime we are to be respectful, calm, quiet, only react if forced to… we must be perfect… night time- it all changes.”
This planned night time raid never occurred, The “Patriots” and their Proud Boy allies were forced out of downtown by a crowd of antifascists that substantially outnumbered them. While they would later claim victory, contemporaneous private chats suggest a disorderly rout.
October 9, 2020 at 5:34 am #122689znModeratorKyle Griffin@kylegriffin1
Gov. Whitmer to CNN on whether Barr knew about threats against her: “If he didn’t, he’s incompetent. The fact of the matter is, I have raised this very issue with this White House and asked them to bring the heat down … I asked for their help and they didn’t do a darn thing.”==
Armed Michigan plotters hid their cellphones in a box to be safe but failed to check each other for wires
https://www.businessinsider.com/michigan-militia-kidnapping-wearing-wire-gretchen-whitmer-2020-10
Several members of an armed group who were charged with plotting to kidnap Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan at her vacation home failed to thoroughly inspect each other for security breaches during a group meeting, according to a federal affidavit released Thursday.
Adam Fox, one of the six men who was charged in the plot, was said to have met with other accomplices at his business in Grand Rapids on June 20. According to federal investigators, Fox was aware of the risks and conducted the meeting in the basement that was “accessed through a trap door hidden under a rug.”
Fox then collected all of the cell phones in a box and put it upstairs “to prevent any monitoring,” the criminal complaint said.
Unbeknownst to Fox, however, one of the confidential sources who attended the meeting was wearing a recording device. The audio revealed that the group had plans to attack the state capitol and use Molotov cocktails against police vehicles.
All of the FBI’s confidential sources were vetted for reliability and none of them “were aware of the [others] involved with the groups in order to preserve the independence of their reporting.”
While the affidavit only relied on two confidential sources and two undercover employees, it used other sources during the investigation.
Six men were charged in connection with the kidnapping plot. The FBI said it became aware of the plans sometime in early 2020 through social media channels. Seven other men were charged with terrorism-related crimes.
“Several members talked about murdering ‘tyrants’ or ‘taking’ a sitting governor,” FBI agent Richard Trask II said in the affidavit. “The group decided they needed to increase their numbers and encouraged each other to talk to their neighbors and spread their message.”
Fox also claimed he needed 200 men to attack the capitol building in Lansing and take hostages, including Gov. Whitmer.
“Snatch and grab, man. Grab the f—in’ governor. Just grab the b—-,” Fox said during a July 27 meeting. “Because at that point, we do that, dude — it’s over.”
Whitmer has been criticized by conservative activists for the state’s response to the coronavirus. In April, Whitmer extended a stay-at-home order that imposed restrictions on businesses that were classified as essential. The order was later rescinded as part of the state’s reopening plans.
During a press conference on Thursday afternoon, Whitmer described the men as “sick and depraved.”
“Hatred, bigotry and violence have no place in the great state of Michigan,” she said.
October 9, 2020 at 3:25 pm #122702wvParticipantmichigan interview
—————-This interview with a sitting sheriff in Michigan is absolutely wild. pic.twitter.com/h7WKsrAqCZ
— Ross Jones (@rossjonesWXYZ) October 9, 2020
October 9, 2020 at 3:30 pm #122703wvParticipantDar Leaf was named "Sheriff of the Year" by the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, a right-wing extremist group on the SPLC's radar: https://t.co/17FySzGPM8
— Stephanie Nakhleh (@StephNakhleh) October 9, 2020
October 10, 2020 at 2:54 am #122731znModeratorGov. Gretchen Whitmer: "They’re not 'militias.' They’re domestic terrorists endangering and intimidating their fellow Americans. Words matter." #mileg
— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) October 9, 2020
October 13, 2020 at 8:49 am #122922znModerator"I served as Assistant Secretary for Counterterrorism, and my job was to help keep Americans safe. My time in office coincided with a dramatic rise in white nationalist violence, but my colleagues and I couldn’t get the president to address the problem."https://t.co/WCSZY4Ohhy
— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) October 13, 2020
October 13, 2020 at 11:42 am #122940Billy_TParticipantIt’s keeping me awake at night, thinking about what might happen at the polls. Far-right “militias” are saying, outright, that they’re going to be armed and ready to draw their weapons if they think it’s warranted. If they see a mouse and call it “antifa,” I suppose. And Trump has consistently egged them on, telling them to “liberate” this or that state. The attempted kidnap and murder of Michigan’s governor is at least partially on Trump’s hands, and we learned today they were considering other Democratic governors too, like Northam in Virginia.
First off, it’s yet one more way America is insane — that we allow anyone to open carry, anywhere, but especially at the polls. How on earth could that NOT be voter/poll-worker intimidation? How on earth could that NOT be voter suppression, discourage turnout, or staying in line?
Guns everywhere. Violent nutcases everywhere, overwhelmingly right-wing.
A little something I’ve noticed about MSM reporting? They tend to refrain from calling violent right-wingers “right-wingers.” No problem calling out “the left” for supposed violence. But they seem a bit leery of naming names when it’s a righty. Exceptions, of course. But, in general, they don’t.
My guess is that “conservatives” have been all too successful at whining to the refs, and they’ve caved in. Same thing happened when Bush’s own admin came up with a report on right-wing violent extremism, which Obama’s AG later tried to release. The right, with its hair on fire, claimed “bias” and Obama withdrew said report. Huge error. And it’s a pattern.
Grade the right on a steep curve. Cave into their whining and moaning. Hold the left to much, much higher standards. No wonder America is awash in ignorance, especially about history, and “bothsiderism.”
October 13, 2020 at 1:54 pm #122952znModeratorPlot to kidnap Michigan’s governor grew from the militia movement’s toxic mix of constitutional falsehoods and half-truths
The U.S. militia movement has long been steeped in a peculiar – and unquestionably mistaken – interpretation of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and civil liberties.
This is true of an armed militia group that calls itself the Wolverine Watchmen, who were involved in the recently revealed plot to overthrow Michigan’s government and kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
As I wrote in “Fracturing the Founding: How the Alt-Right Corrupts the Constitution,” published in 2019, the crux of the militia movement’s devotion to what I have called the “alt-right constitution” is a toxic mix of constitutional falsehoods and half-truths.
Private militias
The term “militia” has many meanings.
The Constitution addresses militias in Article 1, authorizing Congress to “provide for organizing, arming and disciplining, the Militia.”
But the Constitution makes no provision for private militias, like the far-right Wolverine Watchmen, Proud Boys, Michigan Militia and the Oath Keepers, to name just a few.
Private militias are simply groups of like-minded men – members are almost always white males – who subscribe to a sometimes confusing set of beliefs about an avaricious federal government that is hostile to white men and white heritage, and the sanctity of the right to bear arms and private property. They believe that government is under the control of Jews, the United Nations, international banking interests, Leftists, Antifa, Black Lives Matter and so on. There is no evidence of this.
On Oct. 8, the FBI arrested six men, five of them from Michigan, and charged them with conspiring to kidnap Whitmer. Shortly thereafter, state authorities charged an additional seven men with, according to the Associated Press, “allegedly seeking to storm the Michigan Capitol and seek a “civil war.” Included were the founders and several members of the Wolverine Watchmen.
As revealed in the FBI affidavit accompanying the federal charges, the six men charged claimed to be defenders of the Bill of Rights. Indeed, some of the men in April had participated in rallies in Lansing, the state capital, where armed citizens tried to force their way onto the floor of the State House to protest Governor Whitmer’s pandemic shut-down orders as a violation of the Constitution by a “tyrannical” government intent upon sacrificing civil liberties in the name of the COVID-19 fight.
According to the FBI’s affidavit, the conspirators wanted to create “a society that followed the U.S. Bill of Rights and where they could be self-sufficient.”
Militia members imagine themselves to be “the last true American patriots,” “the modern defenders of the United States Constitution in general and the Second Amendment in particular.”
Hence, the Bill of Rights – and especially the Second Amendment, which establishes the right to bear arms – figure prominently in the alt-constitution. It is no accident that the initial discussions about overthrowing Michigan’s so-called tyrannical governor started at a Second Amendment rally in June.
According to most militias, the Second Amendment authorizes their activity and likewise makes them free of legal regulation by the state. In truth, the Second Amendment does nothing to authorize private armed militias. Private armed militias are explicitly illegal in every state.
No restrictions on rights
Additional foundational principles of militia constitutionalism include absolutism. Absolutism, in the militia world, is the idea that fundamental constitutional rights – like freedom of speech, the right to bear arms and the right to own property – cannot be restricted or regulated by the state without a citizen’s consent.
The far right’s reading of the First and Second Amendments – which govern free speech and the right to bear arms, respectively – starts from a simple premise: Both amendments are literal and absolute. They believe that the First Amendment allows them to say anything, anytime, anywhere, to anyone, without consequence or reproach by government or even by other citizens who disagree or take offense at their speech.
Similarly, the alt-right gun advocates hold that the Second Amendment protects their God-given right to own a weapon – any weapon – and that governmental efforts to deny, restrict or even to register their weapons must be unconstitutional. They think the Second Amendment trumps every other provision in the Constitution.
Another key belief among militia members is the principle of constitutional self-help. That’s the belief that citizens, acting on their inherent authority as sovereign free men, are ultimately and finally responsible for enforcing the Constitution – as they understand it.
Demonstrating this way of thinking, the men arrested in Michigan discussed taking Gov. Whitmer to a “secure location” in Wisconsin to stand “trial” for treason prior to the Nov. 3 election. According to Barry County, Michigan Sheriff Dar Leaf – a member of the militia-friendly Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officer Association – the men arrested in Michigan were perhaps not trying to kidnap the governor but were instead simply making a citizen’s arrest.
Leaf, who appeared at a Grand Rapids protest in May of Gov. Whitmer’s stay-at-home order along with two of the alleged kidnappers, mistakenly believes that local sheriffs are the highest constitutional authority in the United States, invested with the right to determine which laws support and which laws violate the Constitution. The events in Michigan show how dangerous these mistaken understandings of the Constitution can be.
There will be more
The Wolverine Watchmen are not a Second Amendment militia or constitutional patriots in any sense of the word. If they are guilty of the charges brought against them, then they are terrorists.
The FBI and Michigan law enforcement shut down the Watchmen before an egregious crime and a terrible human tragedy unfolded. But as I concluded just last year in my book, “there is little reason to think the militia movement will subside soon.”
Unfortunately, I did not account for the possibility that President Trump would encourage militias “to stand back and stand by,” which seems likely to encourage and embolden groups that already clearly represent a threat. Expect more Michigans.
October 16, 2020 at 5:10 pm #123106znModeratorExcellent work documenting the special relationship between the Philadelphia police and the Proud Boys, from @KELLYWEILL.
❤️🖤✊https://t.co/Npg1dcvZj6— AntiFash Gorgon (@AntiFashGordon) October 16, 2020
October 16, 2020 at 6:21 pm #123112Billy_TParticipantThis is not healthy:
In this environment, the QAnon conspiracy theories have become another area of partisan divide. An overwhelming majority of Democrats who have heard something about QAnon (90%) say it is at least “somewhat bad” for the country, including 77% who say it is “very bad.” But 41% of Republicans who have heard something about it say QAnon is somewhat or very good for the country, modestly fewer than the 50% who think it is at least somewhat bad.
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Billy_T.
October 24, 2020 at 9:00 am #123347znModeratorOn May 30, Bill Barr, without presenting evidence or charges, blamed "far left" groups for violence after a Minneapolis police bldg was set ablaze.
Today, DOJ is charging *right-wing* saboteurs with attacking that building.
But Barr's damage was done. https://t.co/JqX3YM3M4D
— Ian Bassin (@ianbassin) October 23, 2020
April 18, 2021 at 4:22 pm #129082znModeratorRight wing extremists 330
Antifa 0https://t.co/HXVDs3ZDgp— Ed Doogan (@Hatmands) April 17, 2021
April 18, 2021 at 10:12 pm #129090znModerator“Our guys are very experienced. We have active-duty law enforcement in our organization that are helping to train us. We can blend in with our law enforcement,” says a member of the Oath Keepers, a far-right militia group. https://t.co/7fOee4i1gd pic.twitter.com/JT2sGCMOIL
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) April 18, 2021
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