Replies to post #353217 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

Right-wing extremists using Islamic State tactics to recruit, ASIO warns, amid spike in surveillance

"The Far-Right Revolution Was Waiting for an Opportunity. Now, It’s Here.
"'No Blame?' ABC News finds 54 cases invoking 'Trump' in connection with violence, threats, alleged assaults.
"Leaked Documents Show Police Knew Far-Right Extremists Were the Real Threat at Protests, Not “Antifa”"""

No doubt Trump's racist and violent rhetoric has pushed the pulse of far-right recruitment in Australia too.

By defence correspondent Andrew Greene

Posted Yesterday at 6:39pm


The number of far-right counterterrorism cases has ballooned. (Reuters: Go Nakamura)

Australia's domestic spy agency has revealed a dramatic rise in the number of violent right-wing extremists under surveillance, while warning some groups are now employing Islamic State-style radicalisation tactics.

Key points:

* Up to 40 per cent of ASIO's counterterrorism case load is linked to right-wing extremism

* Some groups have been compared to Islamic State due to their propaganda outreach online

* ASIO says the COVID-19 pandemic has provided an opportunity for extremists to radicalise more people

The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) has told Parliament's Joint Intelligence and Security Committee that far-right movements are also taking advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic to bolster recruitment .. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-12/asio-briefing-warns-far-right-is-exploiting-coronavirus/12344472 .

ASIO deputy director-general Heather Cook said up to 40 per cent of the agency's counterterrorism efforts are now focussed on thwarting violent plots by right-wing groups or individuals.

"Extreme right-wing violent extremism occupies approximately between 30 and 40 per cent of ASIO's current case load in our counterterrorism work — and that is an increase from approximately 10 and 15 per cent prior to 2016," she said.

Ms Cook has also revealed that ASIO is concerned that right-wing extremists are now using the same strategies as Islamic extremists to bolster their ranks.

"I think not dissimilar to the way ISIL [Islamic State] used its propaganda and its ability to manipulate social media to recruit the young and the vulnerable — I think we are seeing a similar phenomenon being used by some in that extreme right-wing milieu to good effect," she said.


ASIO deputy director-general Heather Cook (right) says the number of cases has increased in recent years.
(ABC News: Adam Kennedy)

The threat posed by radical right-wing extremists came to public prominence following last year's deadly Christchurch mosque shootings, and in February, ASIO warned that neo-Nazis were emerging as one of Australia's most challenging security threats.

Under questioning from Labor MP Anthony Byrne, Ms Cook also warned that COVID-19 was leading to an increase in radicalisation.

"There's always a combination of factors which contribute to an attraction to a particular type of ideology at a particular point in time," she said.

"Some of the circumstances of COVID have contributed to an increase in radicalisation, in particular, because of the amount of time that individuals are spending in isolation or working from home or not in school.

"It makes it much easier to be finding like-minded individuals, there is a much wider variety of what I would call chat groups or areas where individuals with these views can coalesce and discuss and I guess promote those views more widely."

Mr Byrne, the deputy chair of the intelligence committee, described the revelations of a rapid increase in violent right-wing extremists as "astonishing".

Responding to ASIO's evidence, Shadow Home Affairs Minister Kristina Keneally tweeted that Australia was still the only country inside the "Five-Eyes" intelligence network — which includes the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand — which had not officially proscribed any right-wing extremist group as a terrorist organisation .. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-10/labor-calls-for-right-wing-extremists-be-proscribed-terrorists/12652298 .

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-22/right-wing-extremists-asio-islamic-state-tactics/12690002

See also:

Leaked Documents Show Police Knew Far-Right Extremists Were the Real Threat at Protests, Not “Antifa”
"Politics Drive Views of US Response to 2 Oregon Standoffs"
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=157167231

The Story Behind Bill Barr’s Unmarked Federal Agents
"Frank Figliuzzi On Trump: He Relishes The Idea That People Are Appalled | Deadline | MSNBC
"Colin Powell just called out every Republican in Congress""
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=156142661

The Republican Embrace of QAnon Goes Far Beyond Trump
"Why conspiracy theories flourish on the right
"Think QAnon Is on the Fringe? So Was the Tea Party
"...Joe Biden camp calls Donald Trump 'abhorrent' amid Kamala Harris conspiracy"""
[...]
Other Republican elected officials who have tried to push back publicly against QAnon’s spread have found themselves under attack. This month, when Representative Adam Kinzinger, an Illinois Republican, posted a tweet that called QAnon a fabrication that has “no place in Congress,” a senior Trump campaign staff member immediately fired back ..

When will @RepKinzinger condemn the Steele Dossier fabrications and conspiracy theories pushed by Democrats? That actually WAS Russian propaganda. https://t.co/NzVjbkkk8l

— Matt Wolking (@MattWolking) August 12, 2020

.. at him, saying he should be focused on “conspiracy theories pushed by Democrats.”
p - Fearful of inviting similar blowback, few other elected Republicans have been willing to speak out publicly. Mostly, they avoid questions about it, demonstrating the thin line some officials are trying to walk between extreme elements among their base who adore Mr. Trump and the moderate voters they need to win over.
[...]
More unusual is how QAnon adherents often portray Mr. Trump as a god-emperor figure who has been sending them coded messages of support. The QAnon slogan, “We Are the Storm,” grew out of a remark by Mr. Trump .. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/06/us/politics/trump-calls-meeting-with-military-leaders-the-calm-before-the-storm.html , who quipped during a 2017 photo op with generals, “You guys know what this represents? Maybe it’s the calm before the storm.”
P - The Texas Republicans adopted the slogan in late July after electing a new chairman, Allen West, a former congressman from Florida whose rapid political ascent during the rise of the Tea Party in 2010 was matched only by his fast fall out of Congress two years later. Though Mr. West had not previously indicated any support for QAnon, during his time in Congress he often framed issues as being part of a struggle to save the country, a theme that courses through the conspiracy theory.
P - Now, eight years later, under his leadership the state party appears intent on bringing the QAnon caucus into the fold in Texas. The new slogan was quickly picked up by local chapters of the state party, as well as some prominent Texas Republicans. Whether they believed it and knew where it came from, or simply saw a play for votes in an election year in which Democrats are expected to make gains in Texas, is an open question, though some disaffected Republicans in Texas said QAnon-inspired beliefs were spreading dangerously inside the party.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=157775648

[fuagf]

Men Who Allegedly Plotted to Kidnap Michigan’s Governor Celebrated Violent Far-Right Extremism

"The Far-Right Revolution Was Waiting for an Opportunity. Now, It’s Here.
"'No Blame?' ABC News finds 54 cases invoking 'Trump' in connection with violence, threats, alleged assaults.
"Leaked Documents Show Police Knew Far-Right Extremists Were the Real Threat at Protests, Not “Antifa”"""

They supported Boogaloos and Kenosha shooter Kyle Rittenhouse, among others.

Ali Breland 23 hours ago


Supporters of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution gather for a rally at the statehouse in Lansing, Michigan in September. Militia members charged on Thursday had met up at a similar rally in Lansing this past June. Jeff Kowalsky/AFP via Getty Images

On Thursday, 13 men in Michigan and elsewhere were charged by state and federal authorities for allegedly plotting to violently overthrow state governments and kidnap and possibly kill Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Several had a history of posting far-right memes on social media, including posts in support of Boogaloos, a loose-knit group of armed provocateurs that advocates for a new civil war in the United States, and whose adherents have killed police officers .. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-06-17/far-right-boogaloo-boys-linked-to-killing-of-california-lawmen-other-violence .. and whose ranks include white supremacists. Other posts celebrated Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old facing homicide charges .. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/10/kyle-rittenhouses-lawyers-see-his-case-as-a-battle-in-their-own-culture-war/ .. after gunning down three protestors in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last month.

The FBI charged six individuals with conspiracy to kidnap Gov. Whitmer, and the state of Michigan separately charged seven others with “providing support for terrorist acts,” among other charges. Brandon Caserta, one of the six described in an FBI affidavit .. http://www.seditionists.com/michigankidnap1.pdf , posted several memes endorsing the deadly shootings by Rittenhouse. One shows Rittenhouse laughing underneath the text: “when you’ve smoked 3 commies before you can legally smoke cigarettes.”

Another showed a convoluted meme depicting a man stuffing his foot in a wood chipper—an allegory for how politicians passing gun laws will only embolden Boogaloo extremists.

Josh Russell
@josh_emerson
Some sample content from Brandon Caserta's facebook page.
Rittenhouse memes, Boog Memes, AntiCom memes.
Guy is unhinged. This is your brain on facebook:

https://facebook.com/brandon.caserta.144



Tom Winter
@Tom_Winter
NBC News: At least 5 men have been charged in a federal case in Michigan
tied to a plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

The men are identified in court documents as Adam Fox, Barry Croft, Ty
Garbin, Kaleb Franks, Daniel Harris, and Brandon Caserta.
3:02 AM · Oct 9, 2020
1K 518 people are Tweeting about this

In an Instagram post from two years ago, Caserta praised Jordan Peterson, a reactionary Canadian psychology professor who in recent years has become an icon among young political right-wingers. Peterson’s ideology is vague and mostly focuses on attacking politically correct language and the use of someone’s preferred gender pronouns, but an analysis by the Data & Society Research Institute found that, via YouTube’s algorithms, Peterson was a gateway to violent far-right extremism .. https://datasociety.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/DS_Alternative_Influence.pdf . (The video-streaming platform has adjusted its algorithms since that research was conducted.)

Caserta’s activity on YouTube further suggests his worldview: He subscribed to Project Veritas, an outlet known for pushing right-wing disinformation, and the channel run by Ben Shapiro, also considered by some experts to be a gateway to online radicalization .. https://datasociety.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/DS_Alternative_Influence.pdf , among others .. https://twitter.com/josh_emerson/status/1314244915245780995 . Caserta’s Facebook likes included one for the page “Michigan Revolution,” whose profile photo shows a man dressed in Revolutionary War–era clothing and holding an assault rifle paired with the text “NEW AMERICAN REVOLUTION.”

In his own Facebook videos, Caserta voiced disdain for the police, alluding to being “robbed” by them, although it was unclear what he was referring to.

Video 0:51

Two of Caserta’s charged co-conspirators, Ty Garbin and Adam Fox, were present at an event in which “attendees discussed plans for assaulting the Michigan State Capitol, countering law enforcement first responders, and using “Molotov cocktails” to destroy police vehicles, according to the FBI affidavit.

Another man charged by federal authorities, Kaleb Franks, kept a lower profile on social media but “liked” dozens of pages on Facebook including tactical equipment and firearms sellers, as well as pro-Trump groups including Turning Points USA and the National Rifle Association.

Other online activity showed Caserta and others in the group floating across various ideologies without a coherent or consistent commitment to any particular one. But the seven men charged .. https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2020/10/08/governor-gretchen-whitmer-kidnap-plot-militia/5921409002/ .. by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel were affiliated with a Michigan-based militia group called Wolverine Watchmen, with the alleged intention of overthrowing the state government.

Fox, one of the six facing federal charges along with Carseta and Franks, “said he needed ‘200 men’ to storm the Capitol building in Lansing, Michigan, and take hostages, including the Governor. Fox explained they would try the Governor of Michigan for “treason,” and he said they would execute the plan before the November 2020 elections,” according to the FBI affidavit.

Caserta, Franks, Garbin, and Fox, along with Barry Croft and Daniel Harris, the FBI said, had also plotted to attack police in hopes of igniting a civil war .. https://www.mlive.com/public-interest/2020/10/13-men-face-charges-in-plot-to-kidnap-michigan-gov-gretchen-whitmer-start-civil-war.html .

In the course of their plotting, the six men charged by the Feds reached out to the Wolverine Watchmen, according to Nessel. Seven Wolverine Watchmen members—Paul Bellar, Shawn Fix, Eric Molitor, Michael Null, William Null, Pete Musico, and Joseph Morrison—were charged by Nessel for “providing material support for terrorist acts” and, in Musico and Morrison’s case, threatening terrorism, among other charges .. https://www.wxyz.com/news/7-additional-men-in-michigan-militia-group-charged-in-whitmer-kidnapping-plot .

Several of the Wolverine Watchmen maintained social media accounts where they posted far-right conspiracy theories. The Daily Beast reported .. https://www.thedailybeast.com/what-we-know-about-wolverine-watchmen-accused-of-terror-kidnap-plot-against-michigan-gov-gretchen-whitmer .. that Eric Molitor also praised Kyle Rittenhouse on his Facebook page, posted about QAnon-adjacent conspiracy theories, and shared images in support of the III Percenters, a right-wing militia group. Musico had a profile on Gab, a “free speech” alternative social media site that has been home to white supremacists and anti-Semites. On it, Musico posted about the unfounded far-right conspiracy that in “South Africa they are killing White people.”

-----
[INSERT: This is just one example of the war violent members of far-right American groups have been waging for years.
2010 - Vandals hit at least five Dem offices nationwide, threaten to ‘assassinate’ children of pro-reform lawmakers.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=48179152
.. and in reply ..
From Vanderboegh's site ..
"And, as things begin to spin out of control, remember this:
"All politics in this country now is just dress rehearsal for
civil war." -- Billy Beck, August 2009." .. then there is ..
[...] What is a "Three Percenter"?
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=48179535]
-----

The FBI said that the six men it charged (who appear to be part of an extremist entity separate from the Wolverine Watchmen) first came to its attention after they noticed members of their group “attempting to obtain the addresses of local law-enforcement officers.”

“At the time, the FBI interviewed a member of the militia group who was concerned about the group’s plans to target and kill police officers, and that person agreed to become a CHS,” the affidavit read.

The affidavit also reinforces the plotters’ ties to pro-gun Second Amendment groups. In it, the FBI claims that the leadership of the group who the six facing federal charges belong to, including Garbin, met up at a Second Amendment rally in Lansing, Michigan, at the state Capitol in June.

The group, according to the FBI, had talked about storming the statehouse with hundreds of men to abduct Whitmer and take her hostage and try her for “treason.”

Their plot comes in the wake of President Trump inciting militia groups in April when he tweeted “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” (along with other states) when armed militia members were protesting at and inside statehouses for the government to lift lockdown restrictions aimed at stopping the spread of the coronavirus. At the time, extremists saw the tweets as a call to arms.

At a press conference .. https://twitter.com/markfollman/status/1314285854655836160 .. on Thursday, Gov. Whitmer called for greater empathy and unity in fighting the coronavirus. She also denounced violent militia groups and other far-right extremists and laid the blame for the alleged plot against her and state governments squarely at Trump’s feet. She called out his failure to denounce violent white supremacy during the first presidential debate: “‘Stand back and stand by.’ Hate groups heard the president’s words not as a rebuke, but as a rallying cry. As a call to action.” She continued, “When our leaders meet with, encourage, or fraternize with domestic terrorists, they legitimize their actions, and they are complicit. When they stoke and contribute to hate speech, they are complicit.”

Sam Van Pykeren, David Corn, and Mark Follman contributed to this story.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/10/men-who-allegedly-plotted-to-kidnap-michigan-governor-celebrated-violent-far-right-extremism/

[fuagf]

DHS Warns of White Supremacy Threat, Russian Disinformation in New Report

"The Far-Right Revolution Was Waiting for an Opportunity. Now, It’s Here.
"'No Blame?' ABC News finds 54 cases invoking 'Trump' in connection with violence, threats, alleged assaults.
"Leaked Documents Show Police Knew Far-Right Extremists Were the Real Threat at Protests, Not “Antifa”"""

By Rohini Kurup
Wednesday, October 7, 2020, 1:07 PM

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released a homeland threat assessment .. https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/7223004/DHS-Homeland-Threat-Assessment-Oct-2020.pdf .. on Oct. 6 that identified violent white supremacy as “the most persistent and lethal threat in the Homeland'' and Russia as the primary spreader of disinformation in the United States. The report—the first of its kind for the DHS—details a variety of threats to the United States, ranging from violent extremism to efforts to undermine the election.

The report notes that since 2018, white supremacists have conducted more lethal attacks in the United States than any other domestic violent extremist movement and have “demonstrated longstanding intent” to target racial and religious minorities and members of the LGBTQ+ community, among others. It also concludes that Russia “is the likely primary covert influence actor and purveyor of disinformation and misinformation,” warning that Russian influence actors continue to aggravate social and racial tensions and stoke political resentment in the United States in order to weaken the U.S. and undermine trust in domestic institutions.

The agency also details the cyber threats posed by Russia, China and Iran, and warns that transnational crime organizations—primarily drug cartels—continue to pose a public health risk and threaten U.S. national security.

The report comes after whistleblower Brian Murphy, who previously led the DHS’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis, alleged .. https://www.lawfareblog.com/whistleblower-complaint-alleges-wrongdoing-senior-homeland-security-officials .. that agency heads attempt the report and instructed analysts to downplay threats from violent white supremacy and Russian election interference. In a Senate hearing in September, Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf denied Murphy’s accusations.

You can read the report here .. https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/7223004/DHS-Homeland-Threat-Assessment-Oct-2020.pdf .. and below:

https://www.lawfareblog.com/dhs-warns-white-supremacy-threat-russian-disinformation-new-report

[fuagf]

Police Shrugged Off the Proud Boys, Until They Attacked the Capitol

"The Far-Right Revolution Was Waiting for an Opportunity. Now, It’s Here.
"'No Blame?' ABC News finds 54 cases invoking 'Trump' in connection with violence, threats, alleged assaults.
"Leaked Documents Show Police Knew Far-Right Extremists Were the Real Threat at Protests, Not “Antifa”"""

Related: "AP sources: Intel shows extremists to attend Capitol rally"
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=165739174

In 2016, at the time of the Republican Convention, some Cleveland, Ohio police falsified assault
reports in support of the Proud Boys. Two years later some Portland, Oregon police did a similar thing.

Two Proud Boys accused of leading a mob to Congress followed a bloody path to get there. Law enforcement did little to stop them.


Trump supporters stormed Congress on Jan. 6 to thwart the certification of the presidential election, leading to the deaths of five people. Jon Cherry/Getty Images

By David D. Kirkpatrick and Alan Feuer
Published March 14, 2021 Updated Aug. 23, 2021

A protester was burning an American flag .. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0qq7hgnI50 .. outside the 2016 Republican convention in Cleveland when Joseph Biggs .. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/07/us/politics/proud-boys-capitol-riot.html .. rushed to attack. Jumping a police line, he ripped the man’s shirt off and “started pounding,” he boasted that night in an online video.

But the local police charged the flag burner with assaulting Mr. Biggs. The city later paid $225,000 .. https://www.cleveland.com/court-justice/2019/06/cleveland-to-pay-225000-to-2016-rnc-protester-arrested-during-flag-burning.html .. to settle accusations .. https://www.chandralaw.com/blog/cleveland-to-pay-225k-to-2016-rnc-protester-gregory-johnson-for-retaliation-claims .. that the police had falsified their reports out of sympathy with Mr. Biggs, who went on to become a leader of the far-right Proud Boys .. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/24/us/politics/oath-keepers-proud-boys-capitol-riot.html .

Two years later, in Portland, Ore., something similar occurred. A Proud Boy named Ethan Nordean was caught on video pushing his way through a crowd of counterprotesters, punching one of them, then slamming him to the ground, unconscious. Once again, the police charged only the other man in the skirmish, accusing him of swinging a baton at Mr. Nordean.

Now, Mr. Biggs, 37, and Mr. Nordean, 30, are major targets in a federal investigation that prosecutors on Thursday said could be “one of the largest in American history.” They face some of the most serious charges stemming from the attack on the U.S. Capitol .. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/13/us/politics/capitol-police-riot-report.html .. in January: leading a mob of about 100 Proud Boys .. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/26/us/proud-boys-capitol-riot.html .. in a coordinated plan to disrupt the certification of President Donald J. Trump’s electoral defeat.


Joseph Biggs, left, and Ethan Nordean, right, with megaphone, walked toward the Capitol on the day of the siege. Carolyn Kaster/Associated Press

But an examination of the two men’s histories shows that local and federal law enforcement agencies passed up several opportunities to take action against them and their fellow Proud Boys .. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/23/us/proud-boys-capitol-oregon.html .. long before they breached the Capitol .. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/23/us/proud-boys-capitol-oregon.html .

The group’s propensity for violence and extremism was no secret. But the F.B.I. and other agencies had often seen the Proud Boys as they chose to portray themselves, according to more than a half-dozen current and former federal officials: as mere street brawlers who lacked the organization or ambition of typical bureau targets like neo-Nazis, international terrorists and Mexican drug cartels.

“There was a sense that, yes, their ideology is of concern, and, yes, they are known to have committed acts of violence that would be by definition terrorism, but we don’t worry about them,” said Elizabeth Neumann, an assistant secretary for threat prevention in the Department of Homeland Security who left last year. “The Proud Boys are just the guys-that-drink-too much-after-the-football-game-and-tend-to-get-into-bar-fights type of people — people that never looked organized enough to cause serious national security threats.”

Although law enforcement agencies cannot investigate political groups without reasonable suspicion of a crime, some former officials said they were surprised by the Proud Boys’ apparent impunity.

“They committed violence in public, used videos of that violence to promote themselves for other rallies and then traveled across the country to engage in violence again,” said Mike German, a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University and a former F.B.I. agent who worked undercover among right-wing groups. “How that didn’t attract F.B.I. attention is hard for me to understand.”


President Donald J. Trump told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” during a debate last year. Erin Schaff/The New York Times

Local police officers have appeared at times to side with the Proud Boys, especially when they have squared off against leftists openly critical of law enforcement. Some local officials have complained that without guidance from federal agencies, their police departments were ill equipped to understand the dangers of a national movement like the group.

“It has largely been left to the locals to sort things out for themselves,” said Mitchell Silber, the former director of intelligence analysis at the New York Police Department.

To pre-empt violence by other far-right groups, federal authorities have often used a tactic known as the “knock and talk.” Agents call or confront group members to warn them away from demonstrations, sometimes reviving past criminal offenses as leverage.

Christopher Wray, the F.B.I. director, told a Senate committee this month that agents had done that in the run-up to a pro-Trump rally in Washington on Jan. 6 that preceded the Capitol .. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/13/us/politics/capitol-police-riot-report.html .. assault. They contacted “a handful” of people already under criminal inquiry to discourage attendance, he said.

Enrique Tarrio, the chairman of the Proud Boys, said that federal agents had called or visited him on eight or so occasions before rallies in recent years. But it was never to pressure him to stay away.


The head of the Proud Boys, Enrique Tarrio, with Mr. Biggs at a rally in Portland, Ore. John Rudoff/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Instead, he said in an interview, the agents asked for march routes and other plans in order to separate the Proud Boys from counterprotesters. Other times, he said, agents warned that they had picked up potential threats from the left against him or his associates.

But before the Jan. 6 event, no one contacted the leaders of the Proud Boys, Mr. Tarrio said, even though their gatherings at previous Trump rallies in Washington had been marred by serious violence.

“They did not reach out to us,” he said.

INSERT: Since left-wing groups tend to, legitimately or not, be critical of police forces more than right-wing groups, guess it could be seen as natural police might have more animosity toward the left. There is also much evidence to say that comment is much too charitable toward local police.

‘Disavow, Disavow, Disavow’

In summer 2017, neo-Nazis, Klansmen and other white supremacists gathered in Charlottesville, Va., to announce their resurgence at the “Unite the Right” rally. Its organizer, Jason Kessler, was a member of the Proud Boys .. https://twitter.com/i/status/1311439463059460098 .

The group had been founded a year earlier by Gavin McInnes .. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/16/nyregion/proud-boys-gavin-mcinnes.html , now 50, the co-creator of the media outlet Vice. (The company has long since severed all ties.) He was a Canadian turned New Yorker with a record of statements attacking feminists and Muslims, and he often expressed a half-ironic appetite for mayhem. “Can you call for violence generally?” he once asked in an online video. “’Cause I am.”

The Proud Boys had been volunteering as body guards for right-wing firebrands like Ann Coulter and Milo Yiannopoulos and frequently clashed with left-wing crowds, especially at college campuses. Proud Boys “free speech” rallies in bastions of the left like Seattle, Portland or Berkeley, Calif., routinely ended in street fights.

Yet Mr. McInnes shunned the Unite the Right gathering, saying in an online video: “Disavow, disavow, disavow.” By his account, the Proud Boys were not white supremacists but merely “Western chauvinists.” That stance helped the Proud Boys evade scrutiny from federal law enforcement.

The rally turned violent — a participant drove his car into a crowd of counterprotesters, killing one and injuring more than a dozen — setting off a broad repudiation of the groups that attended.

Despite Mr. McInnes’s cautions, several prominent Proud Boys attended, including Mr. Tarrio, the current chairman, who was photographed blowing kisses to a crowd of counterprotesters. But members cite his role to argue that the Proud Boys are not racially exclusive: Mr. Tarrio’s background is Afro-Cuban, making him one of the rare nonwhite faces in the group.

Video transcript 0:00/0:16 - Crowd chanting: “Nazi
trash, fuck you. Nazi trash, fuck you.... Getty Images

The group, whose total membership is unknown but believed to be in the thousands, has never articulated a specific ideology or dogma. Its rallies, though, feature hyper-nationalist chants about immigration, Islam and Mr. Trump. Its members have lionized Augusto Pinochet, the Chilean dictator, and their events often appear to be thinly disguised pretexts to bait opponents into confrontations.

Indeed, the Proud Boys have made little effort to hide violent intentions. In fall 2018, for example, members of a New England chapter posted notes on the online service Venmo as they paid their monthly dues and transportation costs to an October “Resist Marxism” rally in Providence, R.I.

The event would quickly degenerate into brawls, just what some of the Proud Boys had anticipated.

“October blood money and bus,” one wrote with his payment.

“Right wing atrocities,” wrote another.

“Helicopter fuel. Those filthy commies are not going to push themselves out of helicopters,” quipped a third, alluding to Pinochet’s practice of executing dissidents by dropping them from the air.

The payments even revealed that one member of that chapter was a police officer: Kevin P. Wilcox of East Hampton, Conn. (He did not post violent messages.)

After a complaint from the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the police department said the officer’s affiliation with the Proud Boys did not violate its policies, in part because it was not considered a white supremacist group. Officer Wilcox .. https://bangordailynews.com/2019/11/13/news/connecticut-police-officer-says-he-quit-the-proud-boys-over-fears-of-far-left-attacks/ , now retired, could not be reached for comment.

“We tried to bring attention to the Proud Boys’ violence back then,” said Megan Squire, a computer scientist at Elon University who documented the Venmo transactions. “Nobody listened.”

Career officials in federal enforcement have complained that the Trump administration sought to divert investigative resources .. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/30/us/politics/trump-right-wing-domestic-terrorism.html .. toward poorly defined threats from the left, such as the movement of violence-prone activists known as antifa.

Despite those distractions, the officials note, federal agents worked undercover for months last year to arrest members of a secretive neo-Nazi group, the Base. Prosecutors have accused members of the Base of detailed plots to murder a married couple for supporting antifa and to inject violence into a gun rally in Virginia, all with the aim of triggering a racial civil war.

The F.B.I. later broke up a group of militiamen accused of planning to kidnap Michigan’s governor, Gretchen Whitmer. An informant .. https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2021/03/05/confidential-informant-expected-testify-whitmer-plot-hearings-resume-friday/4590870001/ .. recorded them conspiring during an armed intrusion into the Michigan statehouse to protest Covid-19 stay-at-home orders.


An armed incursion at the Michigan statehouse last April has been seen as a prelude to the attack on Congress. Jeff Kowalsky/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Unlike with those groups, federal law enforcement officials said, no evidence emerged that the Proud Boys had plotted murders, kidnappings, gun crimes or — apart from Jan. 6 — insurrection.

Yet the Proud Boys’ belligerence fit the definition of terrorism, other officials said: unlawful violence and intimidation for political aims. Members raised money to travel across state lines to dozens of rallies with the intent of street fighting, at least once explicitly targeting a Muslim community in upstate New York for harassment — activities that could have justified the scrutiny of federal law enforcement.

A spokesman for the F.B.I. declined to comment on the group.

Some former officials said that the failure to recognize the threat of the Proud Boys was a blind spot in the culture of law enforcement that transcended the Trump administration. “If the Proud Boys was not a white male chauvinist club but a Black male chauvinist club, I think that, sadly, we would have seen a different policing posture,” said Ms. Neumann, the former Homeland Security official.

Municipal police, without federal guidance, took a piecemeal approach, occasionally arresting Proud Boys for egregious violence but more often simply shooing the gang along.

About a week after the October 2018 clashes in Providence, members of the group set upon protesters outside a speech Mr. McInnes was giving at the Metropolitan Republican Club in Manhattan. Two of the Proud Boys were eventually convicted of assault and sentenced to four years in prison .. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/22/nyregion/proud-boys-antifa-sentence.html .

Critics argued that such arrests were rare because police generally favored the Proud Boys over their left-leaning opponents. Mr. McInnes apparently agreed.

“I have a lot of support in the N.Y.P.D.,” he said, without evidence, in an online video shortly after the arrests, “and I very much appreciate that.”

After a Philadelphia rally by Vice President Mike Pence last year, officers at a members-only police union bar mingled inside with about 10 Proud Boys wearing their distinctive regalia. When members of the group confronted journalists who were lingering outside, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported, the police asked the Proud Boys if they were OK.

‘A Very Soft Civil War’

Mr. Nordean became one of the group’s marquee stars, mainly through a viral video of his 2018 knockout punch in Portland.

An amateur body builder who had once trained to be a Navy SEAL, Mr. Nordean was working at his family’s chowder restaurant near Seattle when he first encountered the Proud Boys in 2017, during a scuffle in the city with immigrant-rights demonstrators.

He quickly began to see Proud Boys street fights as part of a much loftier contest.

“You start to kind of develop this feeling that these people are no longer Americans per se but they are kind of anti-American,” Mr. Nordean later told the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on his Infowars program, calling the struggle “a very soft civil war.”

------
[Alleged Santa Cruz Boogaloo Militia Planned ‘War’ on Police, Disguising Themselves as Antifa
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=165740141
[...]
Never forget there are Americans who see themselves actually fighting a 2nd civil war at this very moment.
The Colorado attack is the 7th mass shooting in 7 days in the US
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=166288816]
------

Mr. Nordean adopted the nom de guerre “Rufio Panman,” after a character in the Peter Pan movie “Hook.” About the same time, he went into business with a local police officer, Trevor Davidson, selling fitness supplements. (Although there is no evidence that he aided the Proud Boys, the Renton Police Department is investigating how much the officer knew of Mr. Nordean’s involvement.)

In June 2018, Mr. Nordean went to Portland, where the Proud Boys had repeatedly clashed with local leftists. After a so-called Freedom and Courage rally at a federal building, dozens of members marched around the block to confront waiting counterprotesters.

Video footage showed Mr. Nordean shoving one to the ground before another, David Busby, approached with a metal baton.

By then a street-fighting veteran, Mr. Nordean had put shin guards on his forearms to prepare for combat. Deflecting the baton with one arm, he delivered a right hook to Mr. Busby’s jaw that knocked him unconscious, then threw the man to the ground. Mr. Busby was hospitalized with a “significant concussion,” a police report noted.

Proud Boys websites replayed the video incessantly, calling it “the punch heard ’round the world.”


Mr. Nordean fought with a protester in 2018 and left him with a “significant concussion,” according to a police report. He was not charged.

“I just love how you giant-roundhouse-right-hook and then shove him down so his head hits the pavement — that probably hurt him worse!” Mr. Jones exulted in an interview with Mr. Nordean, adding, “It’s so exciting!”

On six Facebook pages the group used to vet new recruits, the number of prospective members jumped more than 70 percent over the next 30 days, adding more than 820 potential Proud Boys, said Cassie Miller, a researcher at the Southern Poverty Law Center. The number of active chapters around the country exploded, increasing from three in 2017 to about 44 by the end of 2018, according to a count by the center.

Two other Proud Boys were arrested that day for violence during previous clashes. But Mr. Nordean was not. He “claimed he exercised his right to defend himself and others,” the police report noted. The department declined to comment, as did Mr. Nordean’s lawyer.

Mr. Nordean said on Infowars that he could tell the Portland police despised the counterprotesters but left the fighting to the Proud Boys. The police, he added, were caught “in between doing what’s right and getting in trouble” because they were “entangled in a whole bunch of politically correct things.”

[Or the police could simply do the job they are paid to do. Without fear or favor. In
my comment up top i was obviously far too charitable to too many on American police forces.]

The ‘Thin Blue Line’

Mr. Biggs, the future Proud Boys leader who attacked the flag burner in Cleveland, was a barrel-chested Army veteran who had served in Afghanistan and Iraq. He got his start on the far right working as an Infowars correspondent, which is how he encountered Mr. Nordean and the Proud Boys.

Mr. Biggs’s record of violence predated his affiliation with the group. He was arrested in North Carolina on a domestic violence charge in 2007; prosecutors dropped the case after his wife failed to appear as a witness. He was convicted of resisting arrest in South Carolina in 2012 and sentenced to probation. And he was arrested in early 2016, accused of assaulting a security officer outside his apartment in Austin, Texas.

He boasted on Infowars that the Texas episode was a struggle against tyranny, but his account raised questions. He and a girlfriend had come home “tipsy” after drinking shots with a friend, he said, and he angrily refused a security guard’s instructions to keep the noise down and to go inside. The two men fought until the police arrived. But a grand jury declined to bring charges.

A few weeks later, Mr. Biggs was at the Republican convention in Cleveland as a correspondent for Infowars when he attacked the flag burner, Gregory Johnson, now 64.


Mr. Biggs pummeled Gregory Johnson, above, a member of the Revolutionary Communist Party who burned the American flag at a protest in 2016. Jenna Schoenefeld for The New York Times

A member of the Revolutionary Communist Party, he had been the plaintiff in the landmark 1989 Supreme Court case Johnson v. Texas, which established that the First Amendment protected flag burning.

Although video recordings indicated that Mr. Biggs started the melee by pummeling Mr. Johnson, a police officer said in an affidavit that Mr. Johnson “caused two media members to get burned by the fire” — Mr. Biggs and an Infowars colleague.

“He is a fascist,” Mr. Johnson said of Mr. Biggs in an interview.

A lawyer for Mr. Biggs declined to comment.

The Trump adviser Roger J. Stone Jr., an Infowars regular, introduced Mr. Biggs to Mr. Tarrio, the Proud Boys chairman, and by 2019 he had started helping him organize events.

There was another flag-burning incident. On July 4, 2019, Mr. Biggs helped lead a Proud Boys rally in front of the White House to protest a demonstration by Mr. Johnson and fellow party members.

Video transcript 0:00/0:54
“You are not burning my flag.” Chanting: “Slavery, genocide and war.” “America was never great.” [yelling]
Chanting: “Proud boys! Proud boys! What are you going to do when they come for you? Proud boys.” Ford Fischer

The Proud Boys attacked the flag burners, but the Metropolitan Police Department instead arrested Mr. Johnson and another Communist, on assault and other charges. The police then escorted the Proud Boys to a nearby bar. Several officers were captured on video exchanging fist bumps with one of the them. Department officials said they found “insufficient facts” to identify any policy violation.

A month later, in August, Mr. Biggs helped organize an “End Domestic Terrorism” rally in Portland. He posted a series of social media messages threatening leftist counterprotesters, including photos of him wielding a huge spiked baseball bat emblazoned with Mr. Trump’s slogan, “Make America Great Again.”

[ There should be no doubt at all the Proud Boys and other far-right violent groups are Trump's equivalence
of Mussolini's blackshirts and Hitler's brownshirts .. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturmabteilung]

F.B.I. agents pulled Mr. Biggs and Mr. Tarrio aside at the Portland airport but did not ask them to tone down the posts or stay away from the rally, the Proud Boys chairman recalled.

Instead, he explained, the agents warned the two Proud Boys of threats against them from antifa activists. (The Portland police separated the antagonists, avoiding major violence.)


Members of the Proud Boys set fire to a Black Lives Matter banner torn from a Washington church last December. Victor J. Blue for The New York Times

At the end of the year, as Mr. Trump was trying to overturn his election loss, Mr. Biggs and Mr. Tarrio marched at the head of hundreds of Proud Boys during a pro-Trump “Stop the Steal” rally in Washington. That night, members stole a Black Lives Matter banner and burned it in the street.

In video footage, Mr. Biggs urged the crowd of Proud Boys to celebrate by drinking. As he led them to a bar, he chanted, “I like beer!” — a Proud Boys inside joke alluding to testimony by Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh during his Supreme Court confirmation.

Mr. Biggs’s mood changed after a tumultuous night of street clashes. Two Proud Boys were stabbed, and he grew angry at the police for failing to more actively defend the Proud Boys.

“We are the ones that back you!” he yelled through a megaphone at a phalanx of riot officers. “That thin blue line is getting thinner and thinner.”

The Washington police arrested Mr. Tarrio on Jan. 4, questioning him about the banner burning and charging him with illegal possession of two high-capacity magazines for an AR-15 (each stamped with the Proud Boys rooster logo). But the authorities released him on condition he stay out of the District of Columbia during the Trump rally two days later. No other Proud Boys were arrested in connection with the incident.

‘Want Your House Back? Take It’

The Proud Boys made no effort to hide their anticipation of political violence in the weeks leading up to Jan. 6. “If there ever was a time for there to be a second civil war, it’s now,” Mr. Biggs wrote in a blog post .. https://web.archive.org/web/20210224011815/https:/www.thebiggsreport.com/2020/11/the-second-civil-war-is-more-realistic-than-you-think/ .. shortly after the election. “Buy ammo, clean your guns, get storable food and water.” In December, he helped spread the word on social media that when the Proud Boys showed up in Washington, they should do so not in their customary black-and-yellow polo shirts but “incognito.”

Mr. Nordean, meanwhile, used social media to solicit donations for “protective gear” and “communications equipment,” court papers say. After Mr. Tarrio was expelled from Washington, according to prosecutors, the Proud Boys tapped Mr. Nordean to assume “war powers” and lead them at the Capitol. (It is unclear exactly what “war powers” referred to.)


Dominic Pezzola, a member of the Proud Boys, breached the Capitol holding a police shield. Erin Schaff/The New York Times

The 100-strong mob behind Mr. Biggs and Mr. Nordean was almost certainly the single largest organized group that took part in the attack, and prosecutors said its members spearheaded the violence. One Proud Boy, Dominic Pezzola, armed with a riot shield he had stolen from the police, was among the first to shatter a window and break into the Capitol, court papers say.

“Do you want your house back? Take it!” urged another Proud Boy, William Chrestman, clad in military gear and wielding an ax handle.

Federal agents have now executed search warrants on Proud Boys in four states, scoured members’ social media accounts and dug into their private communications. Prosecutors have so far accused 10 members of crimes including destruction of government property and threatening a federal officer. They are now seeking to link as many as possible in an overarching conspiracy indictment.

Agents came for Mr. Biggs on Inauguration Day, arresting him in Florida .. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/20/us/proud-boys-arrest-joseph-biggs.html .. only hours before President Biden was sworn in.

When agents came for Mr. Nordean two weeks later, court papers say, they raided his home in the Seattle suburbs with assault rifles and flash-bang grenades.

David D. Kirkpatrick is a national correspondent based in New York and the author of “Into the Hands of the Soldiers: Freedom and Chaos in Egypt and the Middle East.“ In 2020 he shared a Pulitzer Prize for reporting on covert Russian interference in other governments and as the Cairo bureau chief from 2011 to 2015 he led coverage of the Arab Spring uprisings. @ddknyt • Facebook

Alan Feuer covers courts and criminal justice for the Metro desk. He has written about mobsters, jails, police misconduct, wrongful convictions, government corruption and El Chapo, the jailed chief of the Sinaloa drug cartel. He joined The Times in 1999. @alanfeuer

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/14/us/proud-boys-law-enforcement.html

See also:

'You left us': Proud Boys leader Ethan Nordean slams Trump in expletive-laden message
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=163831814

Maddow: Racism Is 'A Persistent Infection' In White American Culture | Rachel Maddow | MSNBC
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=150704509

[fuagf]

FBI and DHS warn of increased threats to law enforcement and government officials after Mar-a-Lago search

"The Far-Right Revolution Was Waiting for an Opportunity. Now, It’s Here.
"'No Blame?' ABC News finds 54 cases invoking 'Trump' in connection with violence, threats, alleged assaults.
"Leaked Documents Show Police Knew Far-Right Extremists Were the Real Threat at Protests, Not “Antifa”"""

By Nicole Sganga
August 14, 2022 / 12:56 PM / CBS News

VIDEOs

Federal authorities are warning of an increase in threats to law enforcement officials following the FBI's search .. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mar-a-lago-search-warrant-released-today-trump-top-secret-classified-documents-espionage-act-2022-08-12/ .. of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home.

The threats, which are "occurring primarily online and across multiple platforms, including social media sites, web forums, video sharing platforms, and image boards," were identified by the FBI and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in the days following the FBI's authorized seizure of 11 sets of classified documents from the former president's home, including four sets that were classified "top secret," according to the unsealed search warrant .. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mar-a-lago-search-warrant-released-today-trump-top-secret-classified-documents-espionage-act-2022-08-12/ .

"The FBI and DHS would like to ensure that law enforcement, court, and government personnel are aware of the range of threats and criminal and violent incidents," the memo read.

The internal intelligence memo was shared with state, local, tribal and territorial law enforcement officials nationwide late Friday night.

According to the bulletin, "the FBI and DHS have observed an increase in violent threats posted on social media against federal officials and facilities, including a threat to place a so-called dirty bomb in front of FBI Headquarters and issuing general calls for 'civil war' and 'armed rebellion.'"

That includes threats that are "specific in identifying proposed targets, tactics, or weaponry," the bulletin noted.

"Since 8 August 2022, the FBI and DHS have identified multiple articulated threats and calls for the targeted killing of judicial, law enforcement, and government officials associated with the Palm Beach search, including the federal judge who approved the Palm Beach search warrant," the bulletin continued. "The FBI and DHS have also observed the personal identifying information of possible targets of violence, such as home addresses and identification of family members, disseminated online as additional targets."

The assessment noted that three days after the search, "Ricky Shiffer, Jr., wearing a technical vest and armed with an AR-style rifle and a nail gun, attempted to forcibly enter the FBI's Cincinnati Field Office .. https://www.cbsnews.com/video/update-on-attempted-breach-fbi-cincinnati-field-office/ ," and it described the standoff with FBI and law enforcement officers that ultimately resulted in Shiffer's death.

Hours before Shiffer's standoff, he had appeared to post on former President Donald Trump's social media platform Truth Social that he wanted to kill federal agents.

The post, which has since been removed by the site's moderators, appeared shortly after the FBI searched the former president's Mar-a-Lago residence last Monday.

"When they come for you, kill them," the suspect wrote. "Be an American, not a steer."

The posts represent just a fraction of the violent extremist content flooding far-right message boards and social media platforms in the wake of the FBI's search of the Mar-a-Lago resort. Phrases including "civil war" and "lock and load" trended across Telegram channels, Gab, Reddit and TheDonald, a popular forum among Trump supporters.

"As a result of recent activities, we assess that potential targets of DVE violence moving forward could include law enforcement, judicial officials, individuals implicated in conspiracy theories and perceived ideological opponents who challenge their worldview," the joint bulletin continues.

It warns that events could "escalate the threat environment" further, including "possible future law enforcement or legal actions against individuals associated with the Palm Beach search, statements by public officials which incite violence, high profile successful DVE attacks that inspire copycats, or the emergence of additional conspiracy theories."

The bulletin also states that the threats seen so far since the search point to the possibility that domestic violent extremists could see the 2022 midterm elections .. https://www.cbsnews.com/midterm-elections/ .. in November as "an additional flashpoint around which to escalate threats against perceived ideological opponents, including federal law enforcement personnel."

ABC News was the first to report on the intelligence bulletin. DHS has declined to comment.

In a statement, an FBI spokesperson said the agency is "always concerned about violence and threats of violence to law enforcement, including the men and women of the FBI."

"We work closely with our law enforcement partners to assess and respond to such threats, which are reprehensible and dangerous," the statement continued. "As always, we would like to remind members of the public that if they observe anything suspicious to report it to law enforcement immediately."

Jeff Pegues and Jake Rosen contributed to this report.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mar-a-lago-search-fbi-threat-law-enforcement/

See also:

Trump Must Be Held Accountable
"The Two-Pronged Test That Could Put Trump in Prison
Cassidy Hutchinson’s Testimony Changed Our Minds About Indicting Donald Trump"
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=169538386

'You left us': Proud Boys leader Ethan Nordean slams Trump in expletive-laden message
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=163831814

Six dead in Philadelphia, Chattanooga in latest U.S. mass shootings
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=169059973

restripe, AP finds most arrested in protests aren’t leftist radicals
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=168443919

A year after election, RNC still spending hundreds of thousands to cover Trump's legal bills
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=167443485

These New Details About the 'Peaceful Tourists' Who Visited the Capitol Are Incredibly Dark
""The Conspirators: The Proud Boys and Oath Keepers on Jan. 6
"Trump’s Next Coup Has Already Begun""
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=167594434

WARNING: LONG -Kyle Rittenhouse and the New Era of Political Violence
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=166752175

The Far-Right Revolution Was Waiting for an Opportunity. Now, It’s Here.
""No Blame?' ABC News finds 54 cases invoking 'Trump' in connection with violence, threats, alleged assaults.
"Leaked Documents Show Police Knew Far-Right Extremists Were the Real Threat at Protests, Not “Antifa”""
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=158305093

Men Who Allegedly Plotted to Kidnap Michigan’s Governor Celebrated Violent Far-Right Extremism
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=158817560

Alleged Santa Cruz Boogaloo Militia Planned ‘War’ on Police, Disguising Themselves as Antifa
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=165740141