RIGHT WING WATCH

Trump-ally media outlet OAN quietly deleted articles about Dominion despite publicly doubling down on election conspiracy theories

DOMINION IS A CANADIAN COMPANY

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment (plawiuk.blogspot.com)

Jacob Shamsian
Wed, January 20, 2021

Chanel Rion, the White House correspondent for One America News Network. Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images


The media outlet One America News Network has removed articles about Dominion without telling anyone.


The election-technology company is pursuing litigation against figures who spread conspiracy theories about it.


OAN previously sent letters to Dominion doubling down on the conspiracy theories.

One America News Network has quietly scrubbed its website of references to election conspiracy theories, which could be an attempt to fend off a lawsuit from the election-technology companies it had targeted in its stories.

For months, the media organization, which is allied with former President Donald Trump, has published stories about Dominion Voting Systems and perpetuated the baseless conspiracy theory that the company rigged the 2020 presidential election for President Joe Biden at the expense of Trump.

But sometime in January, OAN removed stories about Dominion from its website. It has also removed stories about Smartmatic, a rival election-technology company also targeted in the conspiracy theories.

Stories about Sidney Powell, Rudy Giuliani, and Lin Wood - the three biggest champions of the unsubstantiated theories - have been removed as well.

A review of the "Dominion Voting Systems" category tag on OAN's website shows just one article, published on January 4, about a "MAGA victory rally" in Georgia. But the Wayback Machine, which creates archives of websites, shows more than a dozen stories published with that category tag up until January 14, a week after Dominion filed a $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit against Powell.

The "Dominion Voting Systems" category tag included now deleted stories based on groundless allegations, such as Powell claiming Dominion had a "vote switch algorithm," Giuliani claiming the supposed algorithm created a specific margin for Biden's victory, and an interview with someone claiming a Dominion executive has secret ties to antifa.

The category tag on OAN's website for Powell, an attorney who became a right-wing celebrity while pushing four failed lawsuits seeking to overturn election results based on conspiracy theories, also shows only one story, which mentions Twitter barring her for spreading election conspiracy theories in the wake of the Capitol riot that left five people dead.

The Wayback Machine's records showed that the website previously hosted three other articles about Powell, which were also available on the website until January 14.

The Wayback Machine pages for category tags for Giuliani, Trump's personal lawyer who has pushed conspiracy theories, and the pro-Trump lawyer Lin Wood also showed articles were wiped from OAN's website.

OAN has also removed at least two stories with the category tag "Smartmatic," a technology-company rival to Dominion that conspiracy theorists claimed formed the secret link between the 2020 US election results and the regime of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who died in 2013.

A spokesperson for Dominion said OAN had "not been in contact with us about any articles they have removed."
OAN hasn't given public notice of the removals

Legitimate news organizations normally issue retraction notices or editors' notes when stories have been removed or significantly corrected.

Those notes are generally designed to demonstrate transparency, attempt to retain the trust of readers, or simply show that the news organization is complying with a court order.

But despite the removals, OAN has not given any public notice of those actions. The links to the removed articles do not lead to a retraction notice but to a 404 page.

A 404 page comes up on the One America News Network's website when going to the link for a deleted article. One America News

OAN's purge of articles about Dominion does not appear to be comprehensive. A simple search for "Dominion" on the website brings up a story headlined "Tech Expert Reveals Ga. Voting Machines Connected To Chinese Vendor." The article is based on comments from a person named Jovan Pulitzer, whose claims have been rejected by Georgia's secretary of state. The media organization's YouTube page also appears to show several video segments about Dominion.

Representatives for OAN didn't immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment.
Dominion has threatened to file a defamation lawsuit against OAN

OAN has competed with Fox News and Newsmax to capture an audience of Trump fans.

And unlike Fox News and Newsmax, it has steadfastly refused to acknowledge that Biden legitimately won the 2020 election, even as he took office Wednesday.

The media organization has found an audience with Trump himself, who in November tweeted its segment "Dominion-izing the vote," which featured the OAN host Chanel Rion. The segment included the QAnon advocate Ron Watkins as a cybersecurity "expert" who said Dominion's software was vulnerable to hacks that allowed it to switch votes from Trump to Biden.

President Donald Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani after an interview with Rion in July. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

OAN's coverage borrowed heavily from Powell's failed lawsuits. Watkins, for example, was included as an affiant in Powell's lawsuits, even though he has no known experience in election security.

In December, Tom Clare, a defamation attorney representing Dominion, sent document-retention letters to dozens of Trump allies, including Powell, Giuliani, the White House counsel's office, Fox News, and Newsmax.

Read more: Dominion sends letters threatening defamation lawsuits to Sean Hannity, Maria Bartiromo, Lou Dobbs, and other pro-Trump media figures

Clare also sent letters to OAN's CEO, Robert Herring, and president, Charles Herring, warning of "imminent" litigation. Clare said the lies had led to death threats against Dominion employees and demanded public retractions and apologies for OAN's stories.

In response, OAN doubled down on conspiracy theories. In letters to Dominion obtained by Insider, OAN demanded the election-technology company retain documents related to its links to Venezuela, George Soros, Smartmatic, and "the Fire that destroyed thousands of voting machines in Caracas, Venezuela" in March - all subjects Dominion says it has no links to.

Sidney Powell in a news conference with Giuliani on November 19.

Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

Dominion has since gone on the offensive, filing the $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit against Powell on January 8.

"These false allegations have caused catastrophic damage to this company. They have branded Dominion, a voting company, as perpetrating a massive fraud," Clare said at a Zoom press conference at the time. "Those allegations triggered a media firestorm that promoted those same false claims to a global audience."

Dominion CEO John Poulos also said he was weighing whether to sue Trump, who hasn't responded to Dominion's litigation threats. Trump's YouTube page still hosts the full 30-minute "Dominion-izing the vote" video, even though it no longer appears on OAN's YouTube page or website.


Read more:
Dominion is ramping up its defamation lawsuits for election conspiracy theories. Trump and his right-wing media allies could be their next target.

OANN is doubling down on election conspiracy theories after Dominion threatened the network with a defamation lawsuit

Dominion Voting Systems files $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit against pro-Trump election attorney Sidney Powell

EXCLUSIVE: Dominion sends letters threatening defamation lawsuits to Sean Hannity, Maria Bartiromo, Lou Dobbs, and other pro-Trump media figures

 MyPillow dropped by retailers amid CEO’s support of baseless voter fraud claims

RIGHT WING WATCH

Fox News, OANN, and Newsmax Pretend Trump’s Not Leaving in Disgrace

Lloyd Grove
Wed, January 20, 2021
  

Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Getty

Depending on which cable channel you were watching on Wednesday morning, it was a tale of two exits.

On Fox News, Newsmax, and One America News Network, Donald Trump’s departure from the presidency—complete with “Hail to the Chief” and a 21-gun salute—was “graceful,” “elegant,” “poignant,” and properly celebratory of “vast accomplishments,” as the talking heads on Newsmax framed the occasion.

On MSNBC and CNN, however, the prevailing theme—predictably—was good riddance to bad rubbish.

On OANN, probably the nation’s most Trump-friendly (make that sycophantic) media outlet, coverage of the president’s final White House goodbye was dominated by pre-taped video packages warning that the Biden administration plans to “target Trump supporters” and how the mainstream media is “ignoring” violence committed by “radical left-wing extremists” in Washington, D.C., on Trump’s 2017 inauguration day—which was “exactly the same” as the Capitol insurrection, according to so-called “reporter” Pearson Sharp.

Anchor Stephanie Myers complained, “Mainstream media and Democrats are continuing to hype up the January 6 protests on Capitol Hill, but they appear to have conveniently forgotten the scenes of violence that were carried out at the Capitol just four years ago by radical left-wing extremists.”

Newsmax TV Is Coming for Fox News by Hiring All the Worst. Is It Actually Working?

Sharp, meanwhile, offered a word salad of false equivalency: “The protests in the Capitol on January 6 have sparked a media outcry like never before—which is surprising because contrary to what you’re hearing on TV and online, this isn't the first time these kinds of protests have played out in our nation's capital. In fact, going back just four years, it was extremists and terrorists from the far left who marched on Washington, attacking innocent bystanders, clashing with police, and setting cars on fire... Similar riots and violent attacks broke out all across the country. Hundreds were injured, including police, and hundreds more were arrested, but the mainstream media showed nothing like the kind of outrage we're seeing today, with conservatives being de-platformed and silenced online by the thousands all over.”

The folks at Fox News, meanwhile, heaped soothing praise on the defeated president, describing Trump as a hard-working family man, while host Dana Perino repeatedly and delicately referred to him as a “disruptor”—apparently her way of putting the best spin on Trump’s loutishly impeachable behavior of recent weeks—and Ainsley Earhardt sadly pondered how he and his 70 million-plus voters must feel down in the dumps today.

Trying out her chops as a fashion critic, Earhardt couldn’t resist delivering a rave review to Trump’s third wife: “Melania has a very Audrey Hepburn look. It’s not lost on me that she is wearing black. She just looks gorgeous as always.”

Nominal straight-news anchor Martha MacCallum, who has increasingly let her conservative freak flag fly since Fox News’ surprisingly fair and balanced election coverage alienated core viewers and contributed to a ratings disaster, claimed Trump has “worked hard in the past 48 hours to finish this on a more gracious note.”

She claimed that in contrast to Trump’s “unifying” messaging—as several Fox News colleagues described it—the 46th president, Joe Biden, was bound to provoke anger and division. Following Trump’s departure speech, MacCallum told viewers that Biden is a “nice man,” but his announced decision to “stop further building of the wall”—one of Trump’s signature unrealized aspirations—is “somewhat divisive.”

Fox anchor Bill Hemmer, meanwhile, struck a wistful tone of what-ifs as he gave the departing president every benefit of the doubt. “I thought his speech on video yesterday was quite effective, to talk about the accomplishments, to talk about the new administration, to talk about everything that he had gotten done over the past four years,” he mused. “What if you could rewind the hands of time back to the week of November 9th and, what if, after the election that week, the president would’ve called an Oval Office speech… and could’ve delivered that same message, we would not have seen what we saw two weeks ago to this day, January 6th, in the Capitol behind me. I just think about his legacy and what could have been had that moment not taken place here in Washington.”

On MSNBC and CNN, the anchors and commentators seemingly were describing events that had absolutely no resemblance to the alternate reality being delivered to viewers of the Trumpist cable channels.

“He looks small,” CNN anchor Dana Bash opined as the defeated 45th president and his unpopular first lady, Melania, made their way across the South Lawn to Marine One, witnessed by a vestigial scattering of staff and the White House press gaggle, for the helicopter flight to Joint Base Andrews. “He just looks like a small man.”

Trump’s Parting Words to U.S.: ‘Have a Nice Life. See You Soon’

Seconds after Trump’s farewell address as he prepared to board Air Force One along with Jared and Ivanka, Don Jr. and his girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle, Tiffany, her fiancé, and other hangers-on—“a planeload of grievances and grudges,” as Anderson Cooper described the scene—Jake Tapper offered his own acerbic assessment: “A fitting end to the Trump presidency. A speech full of puffery and lies, although of course, with this president, it always could have been worse...He did acknowledge that there is an incoming administration. But we don’t have to grade on a curve. It was an embarrassment that he did not even mention the name of his successor, Joe Biden, and the fact that he is making it all about himself and not about the country.”

On MSNBC, Joe Scarborough was uncharacteristically restrained, giving a straightforward summary of his erstwhile pal’s dubious assertions about his administration’s popularity and other pressing issues, punctuated by fact-checks, while Mika Brzezinski acidly derided Trump’s claim to have “left everything on the field.”

Far from Trump’s claim of being a “hard worker,” she said, this “is a president who golfed over 300 times during his presidency and spent most of his time watching television.”

Newsmax’s coverage featured many of the usual suspects—rabid polemicist Betsy McCaughey, disgraced journalist Mark Halperin, Republican spinmeister-turned-historian Craig Shirley, and host Sean Spicer trying to describe the scene at Andrews (sounding as if he was shrieking through a tin can when technical glitches didn’t silence him entirely)—but, surprisingly, also included a bracingly skeptical Democratic strategist named Mustafa Tameez.

Tameez, who noted that Trump shouldn’t be permitted to take credit for the rapid development of COVID-19 vaccines while avoiding blame for his “abject failure” in handling a pandemic that so far has killed more than 400,000 Americans, was quickly excused from the panel that appraised Trump’s goodbye.

It was Newsmax’s Wake Up America anchor Rob Finnerty who called Trump’s farewell “poignant, elegant and graceful,” and also favored viewers with a lengthy disquisition on the significance of the Village People’s gay anthem ”YMCA” blaring over the loudspeakers as Trump waved to his fans. According to Finnerty, the song’s lyrics, “Young man / There’s no need to feel down,” was a reference to Trump’s own experiences as a young real-estate developer confronting challenges in Manhattan in 1978 when the tune was a big hit.

Which prompted media critic John Whitehouse to tweet: “i lost it when newsmax started doing serious textual analysis of what YMCA must mean to trump.”

Read more at The Daily Beast.

RIGHT WING WATCH

President Biden's inauguration according to Newsmax, home to TV's most ardent Trump defenders

Stephen Battaglio
Wed, January 20, 2021

Newsmax opinion host Greg Kelly, TV's most unabashed Trump supporter, has defended the former president's unfounded claims of election fraud. (Newsmax)

Since then-President Trump's election defeat Nov. 3, the mantra for Newsmax opinion host Greg Kelly on his nightly program has been, "It's not over."

Kelly became TV's most unabashed Trump supporter as he defended the ousted president's unfounded claims of voter fraud that fueled a mob assault on the Capitol. His rants found an audience, some nights approaching 1 million viewers, enough to make him an irritant to Fox News, the established choice for conservative viewers.

“Sometimes the bank robber gets away with it,” Kelly said in a recent opening on his program. “Joe Biden stole this election. You know it. I know it. Tens of millions of Americans agree with us.”


But on Wednesday, it really was over. The country watched as President Biden was sworn in outside the Capitol where two weeks earlier pro-Trump rioters had attempted to stop the certification of the electoral college vote.

How conservative networks fare in the post-Trump era will be one of the burning media questions of the next year. Fox News is already feeling the effects of conservatives voters' despair as some of its audience has abandoned watching news altogether.

Newsmax, based in Boca Raton, Fla., has seen its audience grow thanks to Trump, who turned on Fox News in the final months of the 2020 campaign. Trump directed his fans to Newsmax and One America News, a right-wing network based in San Diego, because Fox News journalists and pollsters provided an accurate narrative of the presidential race even as its conservative commentators tore down Biden and indulged in the incumbent's voter fraud theories.

Fox News executives have privately said Newsmax is having a minimal effect on the network's ratings. After Fox News finished 2020 as the most-watched cable network, more news viewers have turned to CNN and MSNBC for coverage of the Biden transition, while some of the conservative audience Fox depends on has tuned out.

Now that the voter fraud battle is over, how did Newsmax cover the day that most of its viewers dreaded? During the inauguration ceremonies, the upstart network was mostly respectful, even as right-leaning guests turned up throughout the day to recite the talking points that are regularly used against Biden — that he'll be soft on China, will be manipulated by the left wing of the Democratic Party and that his call for unity will ring hollow unless he calls off the Senate trial after Trump was impeached for the second time.

During President Biden's inaugural ceremonies, Newsmax coverage was mostly respectful. (Newsmax)

"He could have really unified the country and called off the impeachment," Kelly told viewers in his negative critique of Biden's speech.

Other hosts and commentators said the 74 million Trump voters — a group often referred to on Newsmax — will still feel alienated under the new president.

“He did absolutely nothing to calm their fears about frankly the oppression and discrimination that conservatives and people who espouse traditional American values are subject to in this country today,” said Tom Basile, host of "America Right Now."

There were also repeated charges that the mainstream media are treating Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris gently after being pit bulls in going after Trump — a common theme on Fox News programs.

"The media fawns over him while I pray for him, and he will need our prayers because today he starts off misguided to say the least," said host Grant Stinchfield.

As the day went on, Newsmax coverage became more critical. Greg Hartley, a body-language expert, came on to analyze Biden's speech.

"He feels like no energy for a guy who becomes president," Hartley said. "His energies were low…. His body language does not command — he doesn’t control the space that he’s in.”

There were also encomiums for the policy achievements of the outgoing administration and nostalgic musings over Trump's ability to draw an audience, a contrast to the relief expressed by commentators on CNN, MSNBC and the broadcast news divisions that his term is over. (Even Fox News anchor Chris Wallace said Biden's speech was the best inauguration address he's heard).

Newsmax anchor Shaun Kraisman noted that Trump's showmanship got more people interested in politics and said it was unlikely that the Biden administration will be the same kind of attraction.

“Those who watched it from an entertainment perspective — that’s over,” Kraisman said.

Kraisman suggested that many Newsmax viewers were not going to be tuning in for its inauguration coverage, an unusual acknowledgement for a news anchor to offer to an audience.

“A lot of our normal viewers have personally reached out and said they are not interested in watching this play out today," Kraisman said.

One America News, which has been relentless in its support for Trump, apparently had those disaffected viewers in mind. The network did not carry the inauguration proceedings live, instead running a recorded tribute to Trump and his legacy.

OAN, which is not large enough to have its audience measured by Nielsen, covered the inauguration on its evening talk shows.

"Joe Biden is inaugurated even as evidence of voter fraud continues to emerge," read the ticker at the bottom of the OAN screen. Program host Stephanie Hamill described the day's events as "America's highly militarized inauguration," a dig at the National Guard's protection of the Capitol in response to the Jan. 6 riots and threats of more violence.

On Newsmax, hosts are already hopeful of a Trump comeback. "Wake Up America" host Rob Finnerty played the famous clip of Richard Nixon, after losing the 1962 California gubernatorial race, telling reporters, "You won't have Nixon to kick around any more."

"He swore after that that he would never run for office again," Finnerty said. "Six years after that he was president. As they say, anything can happen."

Kelly is longing for a Trump revival as well. "I miss him already," the host said.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Denial, conspiracy and double-speak: Trump-loving OAN and Newsmax’s bizarre coverage of Biden’s inauguration

Alice Hutton
Wed, January 20, 2021, 

The ultra-conservative news channel Newsmax covering Joe Biden’s inauguration on 20 January, 2021 (Newsmax)

Far-right TV news outlets covered President Joe Biden's inauguration – and the early exit of Donald Trump – from the position of a soothing alternative reality.

From Wednesday morning the ultra-conservative cable networks, NewsMaxTV and One America News (OAN), appeared to be creating a “safe space” for those who remain convinced by Mr Trump’s lies that the presidential election was stolen from him.


The channel’s anchors and guests repeatedly told viewers that Mr Trump lost unfairly and that the presidential transfer of power was completed with grace. At one point, the hosts of NewsMaxTV gave the strong impression that Elton John had performed an impromptu concert in Mr Trump’s honour before he flew to Florida.





“The president is getting a rocking send-off!” yelled Sean Spicer, former White House press secretary turned Newsmax presenter, into the mic from Joint Base Andrews.

Mr Spicer is infamous for his tall tales following Mr Trump’s 2017 inauguration, when he claimed that his boss’s inauguration crowd size had far outstripped President Obama’s attendees. (They did not.)

OAN, however, went one step further. Throughout the morning the inauguration was almost entirely avoided, in favour of other foreign news stories and pre-cut features on Mr Trump's successes in office.

Though that didn’t stop them tweeting scare-mongering news stories including that Biden would focus on “domestic terror, possibly targeting Trump supporters”.

Until November, the conspiracy theory-led OAN and NewsMaxTV, tagline “Real News for Real People”, were considered fringe, Fox News-rip offs and not formidable competitors.

But when the Rupert Murdoch-owned channel admitted the Republican president’s defeat, Mr Trump pointed his followers in both of the networks' direction, as the last bastion of “truth”.


Within days NewsMaxTV's 7pm show, Greg Kelly Reports, had notched up a narrow ratings win over Fox, going from 10,000 viewers to, at one point, around one million, according to Nielsen data.

While OAN’s audiences reportedly jumped by 40 per cent, according to the network, which did not release figures. The job of news reporting on an alternative reality is not an easy one.

On Wednesday Newsmax anchors juggled the Schrödinger's cat of political stories: covering the inauguration of a new president without admitting the defeat of the outgoing one. At any one time in the programme, Mr Trump was both president and not president.

Even the outgoing White House occupant seemed to have taken the contradiction onboard, announcing in his farewell speech: "Have a nice life. See you soon!”

At around 8.30am, Newsmax’s Wake Up America show with Rob Finnerty and co-host Rachel Rollar, included fluffing Mr Trump’s legacy; assuring voters that he didn’t lose the election, and preparing them for any future President Biden “successes” as being down to the “solid ground-work” laid by his predecessor.

Below the screen, the news ticker claimed that “conservatives fear Biden’s immigration plans”…”some schools won’t show the inauguration because of fears of violence” and “Joe Exotic not on pardon list”.

Watching footage of Mr Trump flying off on Air Force One, Mr Finnerty turned to the camera and said: “I get chills every time I see it take off or land.”

Meanwhile the ticker underneath him read: “New York Times editor mocked for DC Biden ‘chills’ comment”, in reference to journalist Lauren Wolfe who, ironically, had tweeted a similar emotional response to the new president arriving, as Finnerty had in seeing the old one leave.

Over the next couple hours, the Newsmax team on the ground in DC found new ways to talk about the inauguration that didn’t involve actually talking about it.

The arrival of President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris ahead of their swearing-in ceremony at the US Capitol, where special Covid-precautions meant no jubilant crowds and parades, was covered from the angle of an alleged bomb threat and the need for 20,000 members of the National Guard.

The alleged threat had been called into the Supreme Court hours before inauguration, the building was checked, nothing was found, and evacuation did not occur.

“We won’t see the sitting president attend the new president’s swearing in ceremony. It’s … different,” said the chirpy White House correspondent Emerald Robinson.

Referring to Mr Trump breaking from 152-years-of-history and intentionally not attending the inauguration, Ms Robinson claimed the outgoing president “didn’t look sad, he looked at peace ... rested and happy”.

And, like all networks, there was a never-ending panel of experts.

Betsy McCaughey, former lieutenant-governor of New York turned Trump economic advisor, credited him with “driving the terrorists out of the Middle East” and inventing the Covid vaccine.

Another guest was Mark Halperin, ex-political director of ABC News who was fired in 2017 following multiple sexual assault allegations.

He called Mr Trump a “tremendous personality” and said that the media “forced him into bad luck”.

Doug Wead, former adviser to President George HW Bush, added: “He’s got a great legacy, peace and prosperity, and they are spitting mad.”

But then Newsmax ran into a problem.

Mustafa Tameez, a former George HW Bush advisor, had been booked. He is now a Democratic strategist.

“Let me say it this way, so it’s very easy for everyone to get their heads round,” Mr Tameez said.

“He will be remembered in history as one of the worst presidents in the history of the United States.”

The presenter Mr Finnerty’s eyes froze.

Mr Tameez continued: “[Trump] leaves with the lowest approval rating since we started calculating approval ratings, so does the First Lady.

“We keep talking about President Trump’s accomplishments? People stormed the Capitol building whilst they were trying to certify the ballots. That is not the kind of history that anyone would want.”

Mr Finnerty moved swiftly to another guest before heading to a commercial break.

When the programme returned, Mr Tameez was no longer on screen.

As Kamala Harris was sworn in as the first female, Black and South Asian vice-president, the network pundits conceded it was a “historic moment”, before moving on to fears that she would “unravel ... four years of work”.

Later as crowds cheered for the newly-minted President Biden, he gave a stirring inaugural address which called for unity. “Let’s start afresh,” he urged the country.

The Newsmax host John Bachman paused for a long time, before finally mumbling: "…our president ... being welcomed by his family ... of course you'll notice Hunter Biden there of course."

RIGHT WING WATCH

Proud Boys are ditching Trump hours after he left the White House for good, calling him a 'shill' and 'extraordinarily weak'


Sarah Al-Arshani
Wed, January 20, 2021

A member of the Proud Boys guards the front stage as another member of the proud boys gives a speech during a rally at Delta Park in Portland, Oregon, on June 26, 2020. Stanton Sharpe/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

The Proud Boys once staunch allies of Trump are now walking away from him calling him a "shill" and "extraordinarily weak," The New York Times reported.

The group is upset he didn't put up a bigger fight to stay in office.

They are also frustrated he hasn't helped any of the members who have been arrested for their involvement in the January 6 siege of the Capitol.

Some members of the Proud Boys, who were staunch allies of former President Donald Trump, have walked away from him after leaving the White House for good on Wednesday, The New York Times reported.

"Trump will go down as a total failure," the Proud Boys said in a Telegram channel on Monday.

The group had stood behind the president for years and were especially re-energized after saying: "Proud Boys - stand back and stand by" during a presidential debate last year.

Trump was responding after being asked to denounce white nationalist organizations.

Some Proud Boys were in attendance on January 6 when a pro-Trump mob stormed the US Capitol. After Trump lost the election in November, the group encouraged members to attend protests and baselessly echoed his claims that he'd lost due to fraud.

"Hail Emperor Trump," the Proud Boys wrote in a private Telegram channel on November 8, the Times reported.

Read more: Biden's inauguration is unlike any before. Photos show how his ceremony compares to those of previous presidents.

However, as Trump left office, some Proud Boys were disappointed that he didn't put up more of a fight to stay in power, and that he later condemned the violence that ensued during the Capitol siege, which led to five deaths.

Some members called Trump a "shill" and "extraordinarily weak," and have since urged others not to attend any more Trump events or even those from the Republican party, The Times reported.

Members are angered that Trump didn't help the Proud Boys arrested for their involvement in the January 6 siege.

On Wednesday, Joseph Biggs, a leader of the group, was arrested on charges of obstruction of a proceeding, entering restricted grounds, and disorderly conduct, CNN reported.

Read more: I went inside the US Capitol's immense security bubble to cover the most surreal presidential inauguration of my lifetime. Here's what I saw.

He is at least the fifth member of the Proud Boys to be arrested in connection to the deadly Capitol riot, the Times reported.

According to reporting from Insider's Rachel Greenspan, members of the far-right group QAnon have also begun disavowing the president. The group flaunted a baseless conspiracy theory that alleged Trump was fighting a "deep state" cabal of pedophiles and human traffickers.

Read the original article on Business Insider

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

Wed, January 20, 2021, 12:56 PM

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)

“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)

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)

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 lovers, church groups, school classrooms, anti-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?!?!?!”

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.