Thursday, January 21, 2021

RIGHT WING WATCH
PREDICTING THE APOCALYPSE
‘What happened?’: QAnon followers left upset and angry as conspiracy theory’s ‘storm’ fails to materialise

Andrew Griffin
Wed, January 20, 2021














Followers of QAnon have been left upset and angry in the wake of the apparent collapse of the conspiracy theory.

Followers had hoped for mass arrests of their enemies and the final proof that their faith in the unknown person named Q and Donald Trump had not been misplaced. But the largely uneventful inauguration seemed to be the final blow for the theory – leaving many upset and angry, even as others struggled to find new ways to keep the theory going.

The baseless QAnon theory suggests, without any evidence, that argued that a group of powerful, Satan-worshipping people running a cannibalistic child sexual abuse ring. It argues that Donald Trump is planning to take down the group – and that those plans could not be revealed publicly, but have been disseminated by an anonymous individual named Q.

In a series of posts, originally on website 4chan, Q laid out those theories in cryptic language. As those posts accrued, so did large numbers of followers, many of whom attended Mr Trump’s rallies and received some encouragement from him and his family.

QAnon’s adherents came to believe that the cabal would eventually be exposed and arrested in an event known as the Storm and orchestrated by Mr Trump. But despite repeated predictions of dates for such an event – including an initial indication from the person going by the name Q that it would happen in 2017 – and an insistence that it would eventually arrive, nothing happened.

The inauguration and Mr Trump’s final day in office came to symbolise for many the final opportunity for the beliefs within QAnon to be realised. Followers suggested that the ceremony would not go as planned: that Mr Trump was gathering people together so that they could be more easily arrested, for example, or even that Joe Biden was working on behalf of his predecessor.

Even in the final hours of Mr Trump’s presidency, followers were looking for clues. His final speech as president, for instance, was made in front of 17 American flags – taken by some to be a reference to the fact that Q is the 17th letter in the alphabet.


As the inauguration came and went, however, and Mr Trump left for Mar-a-Lago, it became clear that no such storm was coming.

The inauguration was just the end of a run of events that served to undermine the QAnon narrative, and the view of Donald Trump as powerful and secretly in control that underpinned it. Since Mr Trump lost the election, posts by Q have been few and far between, leaving followers with little guidance for how to understand damaging events such as Mr Trump’s response to the attacks on the Capitol and his departure from the White House.

That silence from the person or people at the heart of the conspiracy theory continued on Wednesday. The Q account has not posted since December, leaving its more active and well-followed adherents to fill in the gaps and attempt to flesh out the reasons that the predictions had not come true, which led to the belief that the Storm might arrive during the inauguration.

The uneventful inauguration left many of those who had believed that some cataclysmic event was coming frustrated and lost. Many suggested that it was the final straw of their trust in the conspiracy theory – even while others found new ways to believe.



One prominent Q supporter, for instance, posted on right-wing social network Gab to suggest that it was an “exciting day”. “Don’t worry about what happens at 12pm,” they wrote, referring to the Tim eo fate inauguration – “watch what happens after that”.

Followers picked up on some indications from Mr Trump and his circle that they would not be going away as a cause for hope. Mr Trump ended his final speech, in front of those 17 flags, by telling supporters to “have a good life” and saying “we will see you soon”, which some adherents took as an indication that all was not lost.

Others suggested that the Storm had actually arrived, and people had perhaps not noticed it. Another prominent account posted a picture of a large crowd at one of Mr Trump’s rallies, captioning it with the hashtag #TheStormIsHere.

Others however, seemed lost – finding themselves angry or upset after the central tenets of the conspiracy theory appeared to have come undone.

“Where’s the damn storm?" wrote one person in a large QAnon supporting Telegram group.

“I want to puke," another wrote.


Accusations of those to blame for the failure ranged from Mr Trump himself to Q, but the widespread acceptance was that “we been played”, as one account wrote.

“Sad and confused,” one follower wrote, seemingly summing up many followers’ feelings. “Sick to my stomach."

Even an account belonging to Ron Watkins – who has been central to the QAnon mythology and run the website, 8kun, on which much of its material has been disseminated – suggested that people should give up and move on.

“We gave it our all,” he wrote on Telegram. "Now we need to keep our chins up and go back to our lives as best we are able. We have a new president sworn in and it is our responsibility as citizens to respect the Constitution regardless of whether or not we agree with the specifics or details regarding officials who are sworn in.

“As we enter into the next administration please remember all the friends and happy memories we made together over the past few years.”


Inauguration sows doubt among QAnon conspiracy theorists

FILE - In this May 14, 2020, file photo, a person wears a vest supporting QAnon at a protest rally in Olympia, Wash., against Gov. Jay Inslee and Washington state stay-at-home orders made in efforts to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. President Joe Biden's inauguration has sown a mixture of anger, confusion and disappointment among believers in the baseless QAnon conspiracy theory. AP Photo/Ted S. Warren

MICHAEL KUNZELMAN, AMANDA SEITZ and DAVID KLEPPER
Wed, January 20, 2021

COLLEGE PARK, Md. (AP) — For years, legions of QAnon conspiracy theory adherents encouraged one another to “trust the plan" as they waited for the day when President Donald Trump would orchestrate mass arrests, military tribunals and executions of his Satan-worshipping, child-sacrificing enemies.

Keeping the faith wasn’t easy when Inauguration Day didn’t usher in “The Storm,” the apocalyptic reckoning that they have believed was coming for prominent Democrats and Trump’s “deep state” foes. QAnon followers grappled with anger, confusion and disappointment Wednesday as President Joe Biden was sworn into office.

Some believers found a way to twist the conspiracy theory's convoluted narrative to fit their belief that Biden’s victory was an illusion and that Trump would secure a second term in office. Others clung to the notion that Trump will remain a “shadow president” during Biden's term. Some even floated the idea that the inauguration ceremony was computer-generated or that Biden himself could be the mysterious “Q,” who is purportedly a government insider posting cryptic clues about the conspiracy.

For many others, however, Trump’s departure sowed doubt.

“I am so scared right now, I really feel nothing is going to happen now,” one poster wrote on a Telegram channel popular with QAnon believers. “I’m just devastated.”

Mike Rothschild, author of a forthcoming book on QAnon called “The Storm is Upon Us,” said it’s too early to gauge whether the wave of disillusionment that swept through the QAnon ranks Wednesday is a turning point or a fleeting setback for the movement.

“I think these people have given up too much and sacrificed too much in their families and in their personal lives,” he said. “They have believed this so completely that to simply walk away from it is just not in the realm of reality for most of these people.”

On Wednesday, as it became obvious that Biden’s inauguration would proceed, many QAnon message boards and online groups were bombarded by hecklers and trolls making fun of the conspiracy. Some longtime QAnon posters said they planned to step away from social media, if only temporarily.

“Trump has said, ‘THE BEST IS YET TO COME.’ I’m not giving up,” Telegram user Qtah wrote in an announcement to his 30,000 subscribers that he was taking a social media break.

Some groups seized the moment to try to recruit disillusioned QAnon supporters to white supremacy and other far-right neofascist movements like the Proud Boys. On Wednesday, for example, an anonymous poster on 4chan posited in a thread that “this would be the perfect time to start posting Nat Soc propaganda in Q anon groups. Clearly, this is a very low point for Q believers, and once people have been broken, they will look for ways to cling back to hope again.” Nat Soc stands for national socialism, commonly referred to as Nazism.

QAnon emerged in 2017 through anonymous, fringe online message boards before migrating to Twitter, Facebook and other mainstream platforms that were slow to purge the conspiracy theory from their sites.

Although Facebook and Twitter platforms vowed last year to rid their sites of QAnon, accounts with thousands of loyal followers remained until this month, when the tech companies finally disabled thousands of users who used violent rhetoric to encourage protests of the election results at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

Twitter announced it had suspended more than 70,000 QAnon accounts in the days following the riots. Facebook, meanwhile disbanded more than 57,000 pages, groups, Facebook profiles and Instagram accounts this month. Trump also was barred from using his Facebook, Twitter and YouTube accounts.

The crackdown sent some of the conspiracy theory’s most ardent promoters fleeing to less populated social media sites like MeWe and the Telegram messaging app, where they quickly raked in thousands of followers.

But the social media companies’ suspensions paralyzed QAnon chatter on the sites, with mentions of popular QAnon hashtags like #FightforTrump and #HoldTheLine declined by roughly 90%, according to an analysis by media intelligence firm Zignal Labs.

Other QAnon believers still found ways to promote their message on Facebook and Twitter, urging followers to hold out hope that Trump would find a way to stay in office or expose the “deep state” network of government leaders who they believe operate a child sex trafficking ring.





Videos and posts on Facebook, Telegram and YouTube predicted Trump would take over the emergency broadcast system to declare martial law and arrest prominent Democrats.

“This presidential inauguration that we’re going to see coming up ... I’m telling you it’s going to be the biggest thing we’ve ever seen in the history of the United States,” one pro-Trump singer, who promotes QAnon conspiracy theories, warned in a Facebook video viewed more than 350,000 times since Monday.

But the peaceful transfer of power from Trump to Biden came and went Wednesday.

Among the most notable defectors appeared to be Ron Watkins, a prominent promoter of election fraud conspiracy theories who helps run an online messaging board where QAnon conspiracy theories run wild.

“We gave it our all,” Watkins wrote in a Telegram post, minutes after Biden was sworn into office. “Now we need to keep our chins up and go back to our lives as best we are able.”

Travis View, a conspiracy theory researcher who co-hosts The QAnon Anonymous Podcast under his pseudonym, said Watkins encouraged Trump supporters to travel to Washington for the Jan. 6 rally that led to the Capitol riots.

“He did a lot of damage to a lot of people,” he said. “He’s responsible for a lot of pain.”

Other QAnon followers spent their time online Wednesday calling Biden an illegitimate president and accusing Democrats of pulling off voter fraud. Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has expressed support for the conspiracy theories, called for Biden’s impeachment across her Twitter, Facebook and Telegram accounts as the new president was sworn in.

Other followers continued to hunt for clues that QAnon prophecies would be fulfilled, with several social media posts noting that Trump's speech Wednesday was delivered in front of 17 American flags — a significant number to QAnon conspiracy theorists because “Q” is the 17th letter of the alphabet.

“I believe the game is still being played this is not over!” one QAnon user wrote to his 26,000 Telegram followers moments after Biden took office.

__ Seitz reported from Chicago and Klepper reported from Providence, Rhode Island. Associated Press reporter Garance Burke in San Francisco and researchers at the University of California, Berkeley’s Human Rights Center Investigations Lab and the Investigative Reporting Program contributed to this report.



'We all just got played': Some QAnon followers lose hope

Ben Collins and Brandy Zadrozny
Wed, January 20, 2021

Some QAnon conspiracy theorists, in public and private internet forums and chat rooms, were despondent Wednesday as their prophecy of an Inauguration Day coup to keep Donald Trump in power failed again as President Joe Biden was sworn into office.

The situation left some QAnon adherents with no choice but to write off the conspiracy theory entirely, but others continued to maintain that it was still developing.

QAnon supporters believed Wednesday's inauguration was an elaborate trap set by the former president, wherein Democrats would be rounded up and executed while Trump retained power. Various other doomsdays theorized by the QAnon community have also come and gone without incident.

But in contrast with the events of those days, Biden's inauguration leaves the community with little daylight. As their predictions failed to come true, radicalized QAnon members expressed their sense of betrayal on messaging apps like Telegram and forums named after their failed doomsday scenario, The Great Awakening.

While Biden took the oath, a top post on a QAnon forum read "I don't think this is supposed to happen" and wondered, "How long does it take the fed to run up the stairs and arrest him?"

Other users became immediately dejected, realizing that their dreams of a bloody coup were not going to be realized.

"Anyone else feeling beyond let down?" a top post on a popular QAnon forum read. "It's like being a kid and seeing the big gift under the tree thinking it is exactly what you want only to open it and realize it was a lump of coal."

One of the largest QAnon groups on Telegram closed comments to let everyone "take a breather" after Biden's inauguration. When it reopened after it was accused of censorship, thousands of users expressed a range of reactions: confusion and realization that QAnon was in fact a hoax, as well as renewed commitment to the conspiracy theory, despite its unreliability.

Ron Watkins, the former administrator for the message board and QAnon hub 8kun and a major force behind false conspiracy theories surrounding the election results, seemed to capitulate, posting a note to his more than 100,000 followers: "We gave it our all. Now we need to keep our chins up and go back to our lives as best we are able."

QAnon influencers fled to fringe apps like Telegram and Gab after years of unbridled growth on larger platforms, including Twitter and Facebook, which banned QAnon accounts and content last year. Facebook reported Tuesday that it had removed 60,000 pages, groups and accounts that had promoted the conspiracy theory since November.

Some QAnon followers spent weeks preparing for a nationwide blackout starting at noon on Inauguration Day, warning friends and family in text chains and Facebook messages to buy CB radios and stock up on food. They believed Trump would announce martial law through the Emergency Alert System before carrying out mass arrests.

Travis View, who hosts the conspiracy-debunking podcast QAnon Anonymous, said those who make money on the conspiracy theory are having a harder time persuading adherents to keep the faith after such a spectacularly wrong prediction.

"QAnon influencers who have built large audiences over the past three years continue to encourage their audiences to 'trust the plan,'" View said. "Many rank-and-file QAnon followers are expressing anger and disillusionment."

Some QAnon followers stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, including a man wearing a QAnon shirt, while leading a pack of protesters toward the Senate chamber.

In QAnon chats captured by the fact-checking technology company Logically.AI and reviewed by NBC News, QAnon supporters drew hard lines shortly before the inauguration began and immediately felt embarrassed when the coup did not occur.

"God help us we're beyond ready. If nothing happens I will no longer believe in anything," one supporter said at the beginning of inauguration.

"We all just got played," another said moments later.

Logically.AI researcher Nick Backovic said that while it does appear that many QAnon followers are giving up after this last failed prophecy, he has seen white supremacist recruiters "raid" QAnon groups with the explicit goal of recruiting disillusioned and hopeless conspiracy theorists.

"There are lots of people feeling shocked, cheated and angry. As scary as that is on its own, it's the rest I'm most worried about," Backovic said. "We're seeing a lot of neo-Nazis preying on the potentially disenchanted Q people."

In the days after the Capitol riots, white supremacist groups expressly targeted "Parler refugees," or Trump fans who they believed could be radicalized after the conservative social media platform Parler was at least temporarily shut down and QAnon was banned from Twitter and Facebook.

"Focus less on trying to red pill [or recruit] them on WW2 and more on how to make them angrier about the election and the new Democrat regime," read a white supremacist recruitment message on Telegram. "Heighten their burning hatred of injustice."

QAnon believers are realizing their entire conspiracy was a hoax 

as Biden is sworn in


Kathryn Krawczyk
Wed, January 20, 2021


President Biden has taken office, former President Donald Trump is in Florida, and the U.S. still hasn't seen a mass arrests of Democrats or a nationwide blackout.

All of these facts were shocking for some followers of the far-right conspiracy theory QAnon, as they thought and hoped that Trump would somehow seize permanent power on Wednesday, NBC News reports. But as Biden was sworn in without a hitch, QAnon message boards lit up with followers who realized a violent overthrow of the government wasn't about to happen, that Trump had no secret plans to somehow stay in office, and that they'd been wrong for months, if not years.


Even Ron Watkins, the administrator of the extremist message board 8kun who may have even originated QAnon, posted a last-ditch call for unity that didn't acknowledge the harmful conspiracy theories he'd allowed to spread for years.

Still, just as the many flaws in QAnon's past predictions failed to dissuade supporters, some believers are continuing to make excuses for Wednesday's events and suggesting some sort of overthrow is still possible.

‘It’s Over’: Devastated QAnon Believers Grapple With President Joe Biden’s Inauguration


Jesselyn Cook
·Senior Reporter, HuffPost

Joe Biden’s inauguration on Wednesday marks not only the historic beginning of a new presidency, but also, for countless Americans, the devastating end of a years long grift.

For believers of QAnon, the far-right conspiracy theory that holds Donald Trump as a deity-like figure secretly battling a “deep state” cabal of pedophiles who control the government, things weren’t supposed to go down this way. Month after month, year after year, they had been told by “Q,” the group’s shadowy online leader, and Q’s army of social media influencers, that a symbolic “storm” was coming. The mythology held that on Wednesday, at long last, the Bidens, Obamas and Clintons would be rounded up and executed for child sex trafficking, treason and other crimes. Trump, having finally conquered evil, would remain in power.

This was the moment they had desperately been waiting for.

Inside digital safe havens for far-right extremists, such as Gab and Telegram, massive QAnon groups turned into virtual watch parties reacting to Wednesday’s ceremony in real time. As the event began, members could hardly contain their joy — or their desire for bloodshed.

“WELCOME TO THE GRAND FINALE!!!” someone cheered in a 185,000-member Gab group. “Anyone else wanna puke with excitement?!?!?!” another person asked amid a rapid stream of messages coursing through a 34,000-member Telegram channel. Others salivated over the idea of decapitations and sexual violence against prominent Democrats. Several messages were too grotesque to publish.

By 11:45 a.m., though, as Kamala Harris took her vice presidential oath of office, the crowds grew anxious.

(Photo: Gab)
(Photo: Gab)

“Well this popcorn just got cold,” one QAnon supporter wrote. When do the arrests start??” another questioned. Still, they continued clinging to hope while counting down the minutes until their long-awaited “great awakening.”

But as noon arrived, and a grinning Biden placed his hand on a Bible to be sworn in as the 46th president of the United States, reality came crashing down.

“I can’t stop crying. Fuck. Why?” one person pleaded. “It’s over,” another conceded. Some wondered how they could possibly mend their broken relationships with the loved ones they’d pushed away over their obsessions with Q.

(Photo: Telegram)
(Photo: Telegram)

Like a flipped switch, the attitude inside online QAnon communities shifted from glee to shock and misery: “NOTHING FUCKING HAPPENED!!!”; “So now we have proof Q was total bullshit”; “I feel sick, disgusted and disappointed”; “Have we been duped???”; “You played us all”; “HOW COULD WE BELIEVE THIS FOR SO LONG? ARE WE ALL IDIOTS?”

Meanwhile, several QAnon loyalists performed medal-worthy mental gymnastics to keep their delusion alive. A few suggested that the video of Biden becoming president was a deepfake and that he was actually locked away behind bars as it played across the nation. Others posited that Biden himself had in fact been working with Trump to dismantle the deep state all along, and would be the one to sic the military on the supposed traitors. Many simply pleaded with each other to stay patient: “Q wouldn’t do this to us. He wouldn’t let us down. Don’t lose hope.”

(Photo: Telegram)
(Photo: Telegram)

But even some of QAnon’s most prominent influencers reluctantly acknowledged that it was time to move on. MelQ, a major QAnon leader, turned off commenting in her Telegram channel as Biden’s swearing-in drew nearer and members appeared to lose faith, in order to “have everyone take a breather.” But once the ceremony was complete, she changed her tune: “Ok let it all out,” she wrote, later adding, “We’ll get through anything together.”

Ron Watkins, the former administrator of 8kun — a platform that has long been vital to Q’s communication with believers — also pulled the plug: “We gave it our all,” he told his nearly 120,000 Telegram subscribers. “Now we need to keep our chins up and go back to our lives as best we are able.”

Even Joe M, one of the earliest and most widely known Q backers, had hinted days ago that QAnon could be a ruse: “Next week, either Q turns out to be an elaborate well-intentioned hoax … or we are all about to watch the Red Sea part and the unfolding of a new biblical-level chapter in human civilization,” he wrote on Jan. 16. But on Wednesday afternoon, he wasn’t ready to accept defeat: “My faith is not in Q, or ‘The Plan’. My faith is in red-blooded, proud and tenacious Americans and everything they have always stood for,” he assured the tens of thousands of users in his Telegram channel. “No matter how dark today may feel, that faith is unbreakable.”

To be sure, this isn’t the end of QAnon or the immense damage it has inflicted on this country. The movement, which the FBI considers to be a domestic terrorist threat, has already evolved and regrouped to string its members along time and time again, and it has planted deep roots in an array of other communities: yoga loverschurch groupsschool classroomsanti-vax networks — the list goes on.

QAnon’s mass radicalization of Americans is part of Trump’s legacy. Addressing it will likely be one of the Biden administration’s greatest challenges.

It’s unclear where the conspiracy theory goes from here; many ardent supporters are vowing to keep marching forward, undeterred. For today, though, the group is at a loss.

“WE’VE BEEN SCAMMED INTO BELIEVING Q!!!” a Telegram user declared.

“WHAT NOW?!?!?!”

Related...

Online Anti-Vax Communities Have Become A Pipeline For QAnon Radicalization

Feeling Betrayed, Far-Right Extremists Have A New Message For Trump: 'Get Out Of Our Way'

Joe Biden Sworn In As 46th President Of The United States

This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.



WNBA star A'ja Wilson teared up during her statue's unveiling, noting her grandmother was not allowed to walk on the same campus in her youth


Meredith Cash
Wed, January 20, 2021
A statue of A'ja Wilson now sits outside of Colonial Life Arena.

A'ja Wilson unveiled her statue at the University of South Carolina.

The Gamecocks legend and reigning WNBA MVP invoked her late grandmother, Hattie Rakes, through tears during the MLK Day ceremony.

Wilson pointed out that Rakes "couldn't even walk on the grounds of the University of South Carolina" as a child, but now that same campus houses a statue of her granddaughter.

The University of South Carolina has forever immortalized A'ja Wilson on its Columbia, South Carolina, campus - the same campus that her grandmother, Hattie Rakes, was forced to avoid as a kid growing up in the segregated southern state.

Wilson returned to her alma mater on Monday - Martin Luther King Jr. Day - to unveil a statue sculpted in her honor. And as she addressed the masked crowd outside Colonial Life Arena, the Gamecocks legend turned WNBA superstar teared up while wearing her late grandmother's pearls and invoking her memory in her closing remarks.



"My grandmother, Hattie Rakes, grew up in this area, actually four blocks from the governor's mansion, to be exact," Wilson said. "When she was a child, she couldn't even walk on the grounds of the University of South Carolina. She would have to walk around the campus just to get to where she needed to go."

"If only she was here today to see that the same grounds she had to walk around now is the same grounds that houses a statue of her granddaughter," she added.

Wilson enjoyed an illustrious four-year career at South Carolina, earning All-America honors each of her final three seasons on campus. She led the Gamecocks to their program's first national championship.

By her senior year, the 6-foot-4 Hopkins, South Carolina, native was the consensus National Player of the Year, winning the Wooden Award, Naismith Trophy, and Wade Trophy after averaging 22.6 points and 11.8 rebounds per game for South Carolina. And she's carried that success into the pros, where she earned MVP honors in the Wubble this season.

A'ja Wilson playing for the South Carolina Gamecocks. AP Photo/Mark Humphrey

After the event wrapped up, Wilson watched as her former coach, Dawn Staley, led the No. 4 Gamecocks past the 15th-ranked Arkansas Razorbacks at home. And during the live broadcast of the game, ESPN's Holly Rowe interviewed Wilson about the "amazing" day and her grandmother's lasting influence.



"Everyone that knows me knows how close my grandmother was to me," Wilson said. "To know that she had to go through all those things is very sad, but at the same time, you look and see they were all planting seeds for us. We have to continue to do the same."

"The message I just want to share with the young Black girls out there is never give up," she added later. "As Black women, we tend to get pushed underneath the rug or just ignored, but at the same time, our voices carry... You can achieve whatever you'd like to. That ceiling is no longer there - we're breaking that ceiling, and we're coming for everyone that's in our way."

Check out full highlights from Monday's celebration below:

Dream close to being sold, taking Loeffler out of WNBA

Sen. Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga., who was running for reelection, speaks to the media at Cobb County International Airport on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2020, in Kennesaw, Ga. (AP Photo/Branden Camp)

DOUG FEINBERG
Tue, January 19, 2021, 10:50 PM

The Atlanta Dream are close to being sold, ending defeated U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler's contentious stint as a WNBA owner.

“As it relates to the Atlanta Dream, we understand a sale of the franchise is close to being finalized,” the league said in a statement. “Once the sale negotiation is concluded, additional information will be provided.”

A person with knowledge of the situation said there are five groups that have expressed interest in buying the Dream and that the team was “finalizing its decision.” The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because none of those details had been revealed publicly by the team.


An Atlanta Dream spokeswoman said the team had no comment on the impending sale at this time.

Players around the league have called for Loeffler to sell her 49% stake in the Dream after she wrote a letter to WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert over the summer objecting to the league’s initiatives to advocate for racial justice and the Black Lives Matter movement.

When Loeffler, a Republican appointed to her Senate seat by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, didn't immediately sell the team, WNBA players started to endorse and campaign for her opponent, Democrat Raphael Warnock, who defeated Loeffler in Georgia's runoff election on Jan. 5. That result, combined with Jon Ossoff's victory in a runoff for Georgia's other Senate seat, handed Democrats control of the Senate.

Warnock and Ossoff were set to be sworn in Wednesday, the same day President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, who will hold the tiebreaking vote in the 50-50 Senate, were inaugurated.

Loeffler, a wealthy businesswoman who had closely aligned herself with Trump, has been an owner of the Dream since 2011. She hadn't served as the franchise's representative to the league's Board of Governors since October 2019. She also wasn't involved in day-to-day business.

Text messages and phone calls to spokespeople for Loeffler’s campaign and Senate office were not immediately returned.

Mary and John Brock are the Dream's majority owners.

After Warnock won the runoff, Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James tweeted a photo of Dream players wearing “Vote Warnock” shirts with the caption: “Think I’m gone put together an ownership group for the The Dream.”

Carmelo Anthony, Dodgers outfielder Mookie Betts, actor Kevin Hart and former NFL player Champ Bailey all replied that they would be interested in helping to buy the team.

The Dream would be the second WNBA franchise sold this month. The Las Vegas Aces were bought, pending approval from the league's Board of Governors, by Raiders owner Mark Davis.
___

This story has been corrected to show that Loeffler was appointed to the Senate by Gov. Brian Kemp, not President Donald Trump.
___

AP Basketball Writer Tim Reynolds and Associated Press Writer Ben Nadler contributed to this report.
___

More AP women's basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/womens-basketball and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

Chiney Ogwumike to executive

produce ESPN documentary 

on 2020 WNBA season

Ryan Young
·Writer

Chiney Ogwumike didn’t partake in the 2020 season inside the WNBA’s bubble in Florida, but she’s going to make sure the season will be remembered forever.

Ogwumike announced on Tuesday that she will serve as an executive producer on an upcoming ESPN Films documentary on the season.

Ogwumike has played four seasons in the league, three with the Connecticut Sun and one with the Los Angeles Sparks. The two-time All-Star and former No. 1 overall pick missed two full seasons due to a knee injury and an Achilles injury, however, and last played in 2019. She opted out of the 2020 season due to medical precautions related to COVID-19.

Ogwumike joined ESPN in 2017, working as a part-time WNBA and NBA analyst while still competing in the league. She took over hosting “Chiney and Golic Jr.,” alongside Mike Golic Jr., which made her the first Black woman to host a national daily sports radio show.

WNBA documentary to hit on social justice push

The league held a modified season at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida, last summer due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That season, though, was overshadowed by a large social justice moment across the country — one that players across the league helped lead.

The documentary, based on the clip Ogwumike shared, will center around that and the players’ involvement in the Georgia Senate race. Players, especially the Atlanta Dream players, took a stand against Dream co-owner and Senator Kelly Loeffler — who was very open with her support for President Donald Trump and criticisms of the Black Lives Matter movement. The team openly supported Loeffler’s opponent in the race during the season, too.

Loeffler eventually lost her race in a runoff election to Sen. Raphael Warnock, and is reportedly planning to sell her stake in the team.

“When it came to what the WBBA players were doing, it always takes me back to what my mom has told me: Tiny drops of water make a mighty ocean,” Ogwumike said on ESPN on Tuesday. “Well, the WNBA players have been doing the work consistently, day by day, especially the last few seasons. Now people are seeing the vast nature of that work coming together.”


Chiney Ogwumike to executive 

produce ESPN documentary 

on 2020 WNBA season

Ryan Young
·Writer

Chiney Ogwumike didn’t partake in the 2020 season inside the WNBA’s bubble in Florida, but she’s going to make sure the season will be remembered forever.

Ogwumike announced on Tuesday that she will serve as an executive producer on an upcoming ESPN Films documentary on the season.

Ogwumike has played four seasons in the league, three with the Connecticut Sun and one with the Los Angeles Sparks. The two-time All-Star and former No. 1 overall pick missed two full seasons due to a knee injury and an Achilles injury, however, and last played in 2019. She opted out of the 2020 season due to medical precautions related to COVID-19.

Ogwumike joined ESPN in 2017, working as a part-time WNBA and NBA analyst while still competing in the league. She took over hosting “Chiney and Golic Jr.,” alongside Mike Golic Jr., which made her the first Black woman to host a national daily sports radio show.

WNBA documentary to hit on social justice push

The league held a modified season at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida, last summer due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That season, though, was overshadowed by a large social justice moment across the country — one that players across the league helped lead.

The documentary, based on the clip Ogwumike shared, will center around that and the players’ involvement in the Georgia Senate race. Players, especially the Atlanta Dream players, took a stand against Dream co-owner and Senator Kelly Loeffler — who was very open with her support for President Donald Trump and criticisms of the Black Lives Matter movement. The team openly supported Loeffler’s opponent in the race during the season, too.

Loeffler eventually lost her race in a runoff election to Sen. Raphael Warnock, and is reportedly planning to sell her stake in the team.

“When it came to what the WBBA players were doing, it always takes me back to what my mom has told me: Tiny drops of water make a mighty ocean,” Ogwumike said on ESPN on Tuesday. “Well, the WNBA players have been doing the work consistently, day by day, especially the last few seasons. Now people are seeing the vast nature of that work coming together.”

ESPN analyst Chiney Ogwumike
ESPN analyst Chiney Ogwumike is working on an upcoming documentary on the WNBA's bubble season last summer. (Jevone Moore/Icon Sportswire/Getty Images)

MY FAVORITE BERNIE 
INAUGURATION MEME

 

Casual Bernie Sanders goes viral as the inauguration's unexpected meme

Nardine Saad 
Wed, January 20, 2021

Sen. Bernie Sanders arrives at Wednesday's inauguration. (Patrick Semansky / Associated Press)

Sen. Bernie Sanders certainly felt the icy burn of the cold day at the Capitol as well as that of the pithy Twitter users who couldn't get enough of his casual Inauguration Daylook.

The Vermont senator became an unexpected meme during Wednesday's festivities after being photographed appearing extremely uncomfortable and cold while in his seat ahead of the ceremony in Washington, D.C.

Vice President Kamala Harris , First Lady Dr. Jill Biden and inauguration performers Lady Gaga andJennifer Lopez catalyzed numerous articles and tweets about their symbolicwardrobe choices for the auspicious occasion.

But Sanders, a former presidential hopeful who became an important ally to President Joe Biden during the 2020 campaign, made a sartorial statement all his own. One of the IDGAF variety.



The 79-year-old lawmaker donned his signature utilitarian Burton jacket amid a sea of bespoke trench coats. (Burton is a snowboarding company based in Burlington, Vt., and a longtime supporter of Sanders).

The progressive politician also prominently displayed patterned knit mittensand inexplicably carried a large manila envelope to the ceremony. It's all business, all the time for this no-frills civil servant.

Ruby Cramer, a reporter for Buzzfeed, noted that Sanders previously wore the same mittens on the campaign trail during his presidential bid. The Green New Deal scribe was given the mittens two years ago by Vermont teacher Jen Ellis, who made them "from repurposed wool sweaters” and lined them with “fleece made from recycled plastic bottles." Men's magazineEsquire noted the jacket proved that "You Only Need One Good Coat."

Like the other guests attending the inauguration during the COVID-19 pandemic, Sanders also wore a disposable blue surgical mask. But that's neither here nor there.

Here are the best tweets reacting to Sanders's look and stance, and some of the best guesses as to what was in that envelope:

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Wednesday, January 20, 2021


Palestinians expect first COVID vaccine by weekend

Palestinians due to receive first batch of Russian vaccine

Ali Sawafta and Nidal al-Mughrabi
Mon, January 18, 2021




RAMALLAH, West Bank/GAZA (Reuters) - Palestinians expect to receive a first batch of COVID-19 vaccine by the weekend, officials said on Tuesday - at a time when more than a quarter of their Israeli neighbours have already been inoculated.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) has ordered Russia's Sputnik V vaccine and hopes to administer it to 50,000 residents by March, after last week granting the drug emergency approval.


The PA governs in the Israeli-occupied West Bank in coordination with Israel, whose vaccination campaign has been the world's fastest. By Tuesday morning, 28% of its 9 million citizens had received at least one dose.

Israel has not extended the programme, which uses vaccines by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna Inc., to the 3.1 million Palestinians in the West Bank or the 2.1 million in the Gaza Strip, which is run by the PA's Islamist rivals Hamas.

Abdel Hafiz Nofal, Palestinian ambassador to Russia, said it would send 5,000 vaccine doses to the West Bank "by the end of the week" and would not charge for this initial consignment.

"We are working to seal an agreement with the Russian government to buy 100,000 doses, which are enough to vaccinate 50,000 people," Nofal told Reuters.

Nofal envisaged the deal taking place in February, and said 100,000 was the most Moscow could sell the PA that month.

Israel's Health Ministry said it had approved the import.

An Israeli official said earlier that the first batch of Sputnik V doses could arrive on Tuesday, through the West Bank's border with Jordan, but later said there had been a hold-up.

Russia's standard export price for the two-dose Sputnik V is $18 but the cash-strapped PA was trying to negotiate a discount, Nofal said.

Palestinian health officials said the first in line for the vaccines would be medical personnel, the elderly and those with chronic diseases - in Gaza as well as in the West Bank.

(Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Andrew Heavens and John Stonestreet)

 

Jill Biden to make history as

1st first lady to hold paid job

outside the White House

KATIE KINDELAN

First Lady Jill Biden will make history as the country's first first lady to hold a paid job outside the White House.

Biden -- who worked full-time as a community college English professor during her eight years as second lady -- has said she plans to continue teaching during her time in the White House.

"I’m really looking forward to being first lady and doing the things that [I did] as second lady, carrying on with military families and education and free community college, cancer [the Biden Cancer Initiative], that Joe and I have both worked on," Biden said in an interview last month on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert." "And I’m going to teach as well."

"It’s hard for me to think of it in historic terms I guess because I taught all eight years when I was second lady," she replied when asked about the historic nature of her decision.

Biden has been an educator for more than three decades. She taught English at Northern Virginia Community College during the eight years her husband, President Joe Biden, served as vice president in the Obama administration.

She is planning to continue to teach at Northern Virginia Community College as first lady, but her office is not releasing any further details.

PHOTO: First Lady Jill Biden places her hands on President Joe Biden during the 59th Presidential Inauguration in Washington, Jan. 20, 2021. (Kevin Dietsch/Reuters)
PHOTO: First Lady Jill Biden places her hands on President Joe Biden during the 59th Presidential Inauguration in Washington, Jan. 20, 2021. (Kevin Dietsch/Reuters)

“As she did as Second Lady, out of respect for the privacy of her students and to preserve the integrity of her classroom, Dr. Biden will keep her teaching at Northern Virginia Community College separate from her public role," Biden spokesman Michael LaRosa told ABC News in a statement.

Kate Andersen Brower, the author of several bestselling books on first ladies and the White House, described Biden's decision to continue teaching as "unprecedented" in American history.

"It is unusual for a second lady to work but unprecedented for a first lady," Andersen Brower told "Good Morning America" in December. "I know from talking to the campaign that there is an understanding that she doesn’t know if she can balance both teaching and being first lady quite yet, but there is a sense of this is her hope and this is what she wants to do because she loves teaching, and it's the career that she's carved out for herself that is unique and different from her husband's."

Andersen Brower said Biden continuing in her professor role would not only be unprecedented but also hopefully a significant shift in the trajectory of first ladies.

MORE: A closer look at the first spouses, Jill Biden and Doug Emhoff

"I think it's incredibly important for a woman to have her own identity, especially when you're married to a politician and now to the president," she said. "The idea that you would have to give up your entire life for your spouse seems very antiquated."

"I hope that people will accept Jill Biden's desire to teach, and that she's a wife and a mother and has a career," added Andersen Brower, who coined the term "Professor FLOTUS" to describe Biden's dual roles. "I hope that we’re at the point where we accept that, because I think if it was a man, we would definitely accept it."

While second lady, Biden worked on support for military families, helped her husband with his Cancer Moonshot initiative and led initiatives to highlight community colleges across the country, all while teaching English and earning her doctorate in education from the University of Delaware in 2007.

In addition to her doctorate, Biden also holds two master's degrees, both of which she earned "while working and raising a family," according to her official White House biography.

Biden was forced to defend her doctor title last year after a Wall Street Journal op-ed called on her drop the "doctor" title from her name because she is not a medical doctor.

MORE: Blended families see themselves in Kamala Harris as she becomes 1st stepmom vice president

The op-ed's author, Joseph Epstein, wrote that the use of doctor by Biden "sounds and feels fraudulent, not to say a touch comic," adding that, "A wise man once said that no one should call himself 'Dr.' unless he has delivered a child."

“That was such a surprise," Biden said on "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert" in response to the op-ed. "It was really the tone of it that I think that -- you know, he called me kiddo."

"And one of the things I'm most proud of is my doctorate," she said. "I mean I worked so hard for it."

Joe Biden also expressed displeasure about the op-ed, telling Colbert of his wife's accomplishments, "She had two master’s degrees and she kept going to school all the time while teaching at night."

In response to the op-ed, women took to Twitter to encourage others with degrees to add them to their name.

"Today I added “Dr” to my profile name. Thanks WSJ for the nudge," wrote Dr. Laura Scherer, an assistant professor at the University of Colorado Medical School.

Biden is entering her role as both First Lady and college professor at a time when women currently make up nearly half of the workforce in the U.S., and nearly one-third of all employed women are working mothers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and the Census Bureau.

In his election victory speech in November, Joe Biden described his wife as both a military mom and an educator who will make a "great" first lady.

PHOTO: Jill Biden sits with second grader Madison LaValle on a tour of Fort Belvoir Elementary School with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, June 22, 2010. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

"She dedicated her life to education. Teaching is not just what she does, it’s who she is," he said. "For American educators, it is a great day for y’all. You’re going to have one of your own in the White House. And Jill is going to make a great first lady. I am so proud of her."

ABC News' Molly Nagle and Johnny Verhovek contributed to this report.

Jill Biden to make history as 1st first lady to hold paid job outside the White House originally appeared on goodmorningamerica.com